Performance Analysis and Benchmarking of Commercial Banks Operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina: a DEA Approach

Background: During the last four years, the banking sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been facing crisis which has caused the stagnation within the sector. Still, the results within the sector vary to a great extent from bank to bank. Objectives: The efficiency score is assessed for each bank and serves as a basis for further comparisons between banks in the period between 2008 and 2010. Methods: A modified model of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has been used in order to combine several financial indicators simultaneously in a unique efficiency measure. The model provides a rounded judgement on a bank\u27s relative efficiency. Results: Efficiency of individual banks varied throughout the observed period and not all of the banks were a part of the negative banking sector trend induced by the crisis. There is no significant difference between performance of banks in different entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and between smaller and larger banks. Conclusions: The results of the study can be used by bank managers to assess the performance of their banks, as observing financial ratios separately can result in a misleading conclusion. The most valuable practical implications of the findings are the provided feasible targets for the three observed years

A Feminist Perspective on Multiculturalism

Feminism is generally defined as a social movement whose primary goal is to promote and protect women’s rights. However, today feminism not only encompasses the protection of women’s rights but also seeks to protect the rights of all marginalized social groups such as members of the LGBT population, persons with disabilities, or the rights of minority ethnic groups within the wider society. Multiculturalism is defined as a public policy to promote the values of different cultures and their undisturbed existence within a liberal society without the tendency to erase the cultural identities of existing groups. When we talk about feminism as an exclusively social movement for the protection of women’s rights, and in the context of multiculturalism, attention is often drawn to the disenfranchisement of women and their position in the patriarchal ethnic groups in which these women live. An important question that arises is whether it is possible to establish the boundaries of group rights but also individual rights given that multiculturalism and feminism have the same goal and that is the protection of human rights and the establishment of a just society of equal opportunities for all members of society but different methods. That is why there is a constant tension between feminism and multiculturalism. How and in what way is it possible to reduce tension and find at least a minimum of tolerance among these ideologies? The attitude of some religions towards women and the protection of women’s rights is particularly interesting. To properly answer the question of whether feminism has a place in the discourse on religions, it is necessary to know the concept of religion and the context in which those religions originated, and it is necessary to understand religious sources. Finally, we should not forget the rights of other marginal groups, but also the rights of men who are increasingly victims of violence due to misunderstandings of women’s rights and are a priori characterized as instigators of violent behavior against women and children. The most important thing for the establishment of a just society of equal rights and opportunities for all is to speak openly about the rights of children, people with disabilities and, men who, due to the deep-rooted opinion that men are “stronger”, do not believe when few dare to speak publicly about violence. it is about war or violence in partner and family relations

A Feminist Perspective on Multiculturalism

Feminism is generally defined as a social movement whose primary goal is to promote and protect women’s rights. However, today feminism not only encompasses the protection of women’s rights but also seeks to protect the rights of all marginalized social groups such as members of the LGBT population, persons with disabilities, or the rights of minority ethnic groups within the wider society. Multiculturalism is defined as a public policy to promote the values of different cultures and their undisturbed existence within a liberal society without the tendency to erase the cultural identities of existing groups. When we talk about feminism as an exclusively social movement for the protection of women’s rights, and in the context of multiculturalism, attention is often drawn to the disenfranchisement of women and their position in the patriarchal ethnic groups in which these women live. An important question that arises is whether it is possible to establish the boundaries of group rights but also individual rights given that multiculturalism and feminism have the same goal and that is the protection of human rights and the establishment of a just society of equal opportunities for all members of society but different methods. That is why there is a constant tension between feminism and multiculturalism. How and in what way is it possible to reduce tension and find at least a minimum of tolerance among these ideologies? The attitude of some religions towards women and the protection of women’s rights is particularly interesting. To properly answer the question of whether feminism has a place in the discourse on religions, it is necessary to know the concept of religion and the context in which those religions originated, and it is necessary to understand religious sources. Finally, we should not forget the rights of other marginal groups, but also the rights of men who are increasingly victims of violence due to misunderstandings of women’s rights and are a priori characterized as instigators of violent behavior against women and children. The most important thing for the establishment of a just society of equal rights and opportunities for all is to speak openly about the rights of children, people with disabilities and, men who, due to the deep-rooted opinion that men are “stronger”, do not believe when few dare to speak publicly about violence. it is about war or violence in partner and family relations

Fourier multiplier theorem for atomic Hardy spaces on unbounded Vilenkin groups

AbstractWe characterize atomic Hardy spaces on unbounded locally compact Vilenkin groups by means of a modified maximal function. The obtained Fourier multiplier theorem is more general than the corresponding results due to Kitada, Onneweer and Quek, Daly and Phillips that were proved under the boundedness assumption on the underlying group

The heart is what makes a man - cor est quod hominem facit

Čovjekova opažanja da rad srca, u životu, nikada ne prestaje, te da je njegov ritam i brzina podložna emocijama i raznim životnim situacijama učinio ja da srce postane najprivilegiraniji organ. Ono od pradavnih vremena postaje i najistraženiji organ. Tražeći prve pisane i crtane tragove o tome prvo nalazimo crteže drevnih primitivnih naroda. Oni su na žrtvenik svojih Bogova prinosili ljudske žrtve vadeći im kucajuća srca. Najstarija znanja o poznavanju srca nalazimo na Ebersovu i Smithovu papirusu drevnih Egipčana. U njihovoj mitologiji bog Anubis, bog mrtvih i vladar podzemlja važe srce pokojnika prije nego što ga propusti u svijet mrtvih. Drevni Kinezi svakom organu pripisuju svojstva elemenata iz prirode i svi su organi u odnosu prijateljstva i neprijateljstva. Tako je srce organ vatre i u uzajamnom odnosu je s ljetom. Komponente yang i yin odgovorne su za rad srca. Za primat srca zalagao se već Aristotel tvrdeći da je srce „mjesto prirođene topline“, dok Hipokrat prvi opisuje anatomiju srca u svojom djelu „De korde“. Galen dolazi do zaključka da je srce pokretač krvi. Srednjevjekovni liječnici, pri sekcijama, traže dušu pokojnika u srcu. Za katolike, srce je simbol života, ljubavi, svega plemenitog i lijepog što čovjek posjeduje.Man's perception that heart's work never stops, and that its rhythm and rate are susceptible to emotions and different life situations, has made the heart the most privileged organ. Since ancient times it has also become the most investigated organ. The first written and drawn traces for this can be found in drawings of ancient primitive people. They sacrificed human victims at the altar of their gods by extracting their beating hearts. The oldest knowledge about the heart is found on Ebers and Smith's papyrus of ancient Egyptians. In their mythology god Anubis, god of the dead and ruler of the underworld, weighs the heart of the deceased before letting him into the world of the dead. Ancient Chinamen attributed to each organ the properties of the elements in nature, and all organs are in the relation of friendliness or hostility. Thus, the heart is the organ of fire and is associated with summer. Yang and yin components are responsible for the heart's work. Aristotle advocated the primacy of the heart, claiming that the heart is the „place of inherent warmth“, while Hippocrates was the first to describe the anatomy of the heart in his work „De korde“. Galen reached the conclusion that the heart is the driver of blood. At autopsies the medieval physicians searched for the soul of the deceased in his heart. For Catholics the heart is the symbol of life, love, everything noble and beautiful that the man possesses

Teaching materials for ESL distance learning

Distance education, as a form of education that enables and promotes development of autono-mous life-long learning skill, necessary to keep up with rapid changes and development in today’s society, is a concept definitely worth considering. Teaching a foreign language in a distance education system is very challenging, primarily in terms of overcoming the main gap – lack of direct contact between teachers and learners. This paper focuses on the aspect of teaching materials used for ESL in a distance learning system

On the divergence of N\"{o}rlund logarithmic means with respect to the L1L^{1} norm on some unbounded Vilenkin groups

Using the results of the paper (1) we give a divergence result of N\"{o}rlund logarithmic means for some unbounded Vilenkin groups

Assessing Credit Default using Logistic Regression and Multiple Discriminant Analysis: Empirical Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article has an aim to assess credit default prediction on the banking market in Bosnia and Herzegovina nationwide as well as on its constitutional entities (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska). Ability to classify companies info different predefined groups or finding an appropriate tool which would replace human assessment in classifying companies into good and bad buckets has been one of the main interests on risk management researchers for a long time. We investigated the possibility and accuracy of default prediction using traditional statistical methods logistic regression (logit) and multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and compared their predictive abilities. The results show that the created models have high predictive ability. For logit models, some variables are more influential on the default prediction than the others. Return on assets (ROA) is statistically significant in all four periods prior to default, having very high regression coefficients, or high impact on the model’s ability to predict default. Similar results are obtained for MDA models. It is also found that predictive ability differs between logistic regression and multiple discriminant analysis

Feminističko gledište o multikulturalizmu

Feminizam se uglavnom definira kao društveni pokret kojem je primarni cilj promoviranje i zaštita ženskih prava. Međutim u današnjici feminizam ne obuhvata samo zaštitu ženskih prava već i pretenduje i na zaštitu prava svih mariginaliziranih društvenih grupa poput pripadnika LGBT populacije, osoba sa invaliditetom ili prava manjinskih etničkih skupina unutar šireg društva. Multikulturalizam se definira kao javna politika promicanja vrijednosti različitih kultura te njihovu neometanu egzistenciju u okviru liberalnog društva bez tendencija brisanja kulturnih identiteta postojećih grupa. Kada se govori o feminizmu kao isključivo društvenom pokretu za zaštitu prava žena i to u kontekstu multikulturalizma često se skreće pažnja na obespravljenost žena i njihov položaj u patrijarhalnim etničkim grupama u kojima te žene žive. Važno pitanje koje se nameće je da li je moguće uspostaviti granice grupnih prava ali i individualnih prava obzirom da multikulturalizam i feminizam imaju isti cilj a to je zaštita ljudskih prava i uspostavljanje pravednog društva jednakih mogućnosti za sve članove ali metode sprovođenja tog cilja su različite skupine. Zbog toga postoji neprestana tenzija između feminizma i multikulturalizma. Kako i na koji način je moguće smanjiti tenziju i naći barem minimum tolerantnosti među ovim ideologijama? Posebno je zanimljiv odnos nekih religija prema ženama te zaštiti ženskih prava. Za pravi odgovor na pitanje da li ima mjesta feminizmu u diskursu o religijama potrebno je poznavati koncept religije i kontekst u kojem su te religije nastale te je potrebno razumjevanje religijskih izvora. Na kraju, ne treba zaboraviti ni prava drugih marginalnih grupa ali ni prava muškaraca koji sve češće usljed pogrešnog shvatanja ideje zaštite ženskih prava bivaju sami žrtve nasilja te se apriori karakteriziraju kao poticatelji nasilnih oblika ponašanja nad ženama i djecom. Najbitnije za uspostavu pravednog društva jednakih prava i mogućnosti za sve je otvoreno govoriti i o pravima djece, osoba sa invalditetom ali i muškaraca kojima zbog duboko ukorijenjenog mišljenja da su muškarci „jači“ spol zapravo ne vjeruje kada se rijetki odvaže progovoriti javno o nasilju bilo da se radi o ratnom ili nasilju u partnerskim i porodičnim odnosima