Promoting Healthy Family Transition and Support in Somali Refugee Parents: Outcomes of a Community-Based Program

Refugee families encounter significant acculturative and resettlement stressors as they attempt to rebuild their lives in the host country. These stressors are exacerbated by histories of trauma, violence, and loss making them highly vulnerable to psychological distress. The Somali Parent Program was a culturally specific, 8-week parent program designed to empower mothers to increase their family resilience by engaging in cultural and social exchange, adapting their parenting strategies to their host country, and learning about community resources. Ten Somali refugee mothers were recruited to participate in weekly 2-hour sessions that incorporated a psycho-educational lesson, an experiential activity, and a closing discussion. Due to the program’s open door policy, an additional seven Somali mothers attended sessions during the 8-week period. Transcripts of initial and concluding interviews, video-recorded sessions, process notes, and artifacts collected throughout the program were analyzed for themes using a phenomenological approach. The goal for this study was to understand how Somali mothers make meaning of their adjustment process and their involvement in the Somali Parent Program. The group members expressed that being part of the program increased their cultural understanding and provided them with ways to navigate their own culture and that of the host country. They also grew more aware of adaptive ways to identify and express emotions and strengthened their communication with their children. At the end of the program, Somali mothers felt more comfortable accessing community supports and resources. Finally they reported significant increases in social supports and networks as well as a newfound sense of meaning and empowerment in their lives. Somali Parent Program findings suggest that culturally specific family-focused programs that emphasize the post-migration experience may provide an effective way of addressing acculturation, adjustment, and recovery amongst refugee families

On the uniqueness of Polish group topologies

Polish groups are separable completely metrizable topological groups. A key problem in the theory of Polish groups is that of the uniqueness of a Polish group topology: under what conditions does a group admit only one Polish group topology? Closely related is the problem of automatic continuity: when is a homomorphism between Polish groups necessarily continuous? This dissertation is an investigation of these questions.The key to unlocking these problems is to determine which sets in a Polish group are definable both algebraically and topologically. By algebraically definable one has in mind sets such as the commutators, conjugacy classes, or the squares. In the context of Polish groups, topologically definable means being a Borel set. A classical uniqueness result requires algebraically definable sets that are always Borel. Unfortunately its use is sometimes limited: while algebraically definable sets are often analytic (continuous images of Borel sets), it is shown here that they are not necessarily Borel. In particular, the set of squares in the homeomorphism group of the unit circle, and the set of squares in the automorphism group of the rational circle, are not Borel.An alternative result that avoids the need for Borel sets is obtained: a Polish group with a neighborhood base at the identity consisting of sets that are always analytic has a unique Polishgroup topology. As a consequence of this result, compact, connected, simple Lie groups and finitely generated profinite groups have a unique Polish group topology

From Puppets to Empowerment: the Bosnia and Herzegovina Genesis Project

The Genesis Project is a local, non-governmental, non-profit, humanitarian organization established in June 1996 in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The main project objectives are the following: Interactive education of children through live puppet show performances representing diverse educational topics (mine risk education (MRE), children’s rights, prevention of all sorts of addictions, etc.). Education of children and youth about healthy lifestyles. Community strengthening with the purpose of informing the public on freedom of speech, democracy and fundamental human rights. Assistance to war-traumatized children and their families. Development and support through various coexistence initiatives throughout BiH. Building of democratic governance

The political environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding power-sharing governance

This study assesses trends of the political environment of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) between the period of 2004 and 2012 pertaining to contentions of two differing models of conflict regulation, the consociational and integrative, which apply to BiH. As each model has contentions pertaining to voting patterns, political elite behaviour, and on the workings of institutions, this study conducts an analysis through the assessment of election results, compliance with power-sharing arrangements and the nature of coalition building, and the workings of a consociational institution to reach its findings. The current system is deemed as being largely ineffective. In addition, since there is pressure to introduce more integrative measures to the power-sharing structure in BiH, the aim is to assess how the trends in the political environment have fared from the period a similar study was conducted in order to reach recommendations on whether or not to further support the utilization of consociational elements. The analysis in this study portrays that the trends hold more true for the contentions pertaining to the consociational model. Although the findings are not conclusive at first, new developments further favour the consociational model. Also, integrative measures were found to be the source of the problem when analyzing compliance with power-sharing arrangements. Therefore, the suggestion conveyed is that instead of diverting away from the use of consociational elements there should be an encouragement to improve them.http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2656907~S

Cybersecurity in small and medium-sized enterprises

As technology is evolving so is the cybercrime, there are new tools and techniques for cyberattacks being developed continuously (Bendovschi, 2015, p. 24). Every business, no matter what size it is, faces some form of digital threat every day. Without knowledge about these threats a business can very quickly find itself in a tough situation with consequences that can shut down a business for good in a matter of hours. The digitalization has progressed quickly and may have created room for threats that we don’t necessarily have control over. A couple of very simple cybersecurity measures can sometimes be a deciding factor in preventing a cyberattack. The aim of this thesis is to discover how significant the cybersecurity risks are for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), whether the SMEs are aware of these risks, and to present a framework which can help SMEs incorporate a strategy to manage cybersecurity risks. The most common causes of a successful cyberattack in SME sector are based around not having enough competence or technical tools in this field. Not only does successful cyberattack affect a business financially, but usually also comes with reputational damage if the case of a cyberattack was to go public. In addition, through the eyes of cyber criminals SMEs are seen as an easy target since attacking these organization brings in hardly any attention of media or law enforcement. The SMEs are therefore completely on their own in this battle, and therefore need to take responsibility themselves instead of allowing their “fate to rest on someone else’s hands”. There can be seen a slight increase in awareness towards cybersecurity risks, but not nearly as much as it should be considering how impactful these risks can be. It is very difficult to say for sure what the reason behind it is, but it seems that the lack of “talk” about successful cyberattacks in the business world contributes to it greatly. But on the other hand, it is understandable that businesses won’t go public with information about being targeted by cyber criminals since everyone wants to keep their reputation intact. This thesis offers a framework which SMEs can use to build a resilient system against cybersecurity risks. The framework that is presented also addresses the challenge most SMEs have which is very limited resources to devote to cybersecurity. Therefore this framework offers a simple process which can benefit an organization significantly. The framework incorporates risk science and is inspired by an international standard for information security management and emphasizes three key points which can point an organization in the right direction: risk assessment, leadership, and employee awareness and training

Which Lipoprotein Measurements Are Clinically Useful?

Emerging lipid risk factors for cardiovascular disease include lipoprotein remnants, lipoprotein (a), small LDL particles, HDL subspecies, apolipoprotein B, apolipoprotein A-I, and oxidized LDL. Measurement of these levels should not be used for routine cardiovascular risk screening. (Strength of Recommendation [SOR]: C, based on expert opinion and lack of clinical outcomes trials

The critical analysis of style

Diese Arbeit ist eine Untersuchung des wissenschaftlichen Wertes der Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Die CDA erfreut sich steigender interdisziplinäre Popularität und ist symptomatisch für den Aufstieg des kritischen Paradigmas in der Linguistik, weshalb es notwendig wird zu fragen ob die CDA die Kriterien einer wissenschaftliche Theorie und Methode erfüllt. In Anlehnung an den kritischen Rationalismus gilt in dieser Arbeit der Grad der Widerlegbarkeit als Hauptkriterium zur Beurteilung der Brauchbarkeit als Theorie. CDAs Wert als Methode wird anhand der Kriterien Validität und Reliabilität gemessen. Die Arbeit besteht aus einem argumentativen und einem analytischen Teil. Ersterer beschreibt zwei Strategien mit denen Kritik verhindert wird. Als erste Strategie gilt der Gebrauch des emanzipatorischen Ziels um die Rationalität dem moralischen Appel unterzuordnen. Zweitens werden verschiedene theoretische Ressourcen fusioniert, wobei diese aus ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext herausgerissen werden. Es wird gezeigt wie - angetrieben durch die kritische Perspektive - isolierte Elemente aus der Soziologie, der Literaturwissenschaft und der Linguistik mittels eines Patchwork Prinzips kombiniert werden um die CDA gegen Kritik zu immunisieren. Im argumentativen Teil werden auch die Schwächen bezüglich der Validität angesprochen, die größtenteils auf der Annahme basieren, dass pragmatische Bedeutung von textlichen Merkmalen abgelesen werden kann. Im analytischen Teil, einem Fallbeispiel bei dem verschiedene Presseaussendungen untersucht werden, wird gezeigt, dass die CDA auch Defizite im Bereich der Reliabilität aufweist. Ausgehend von Faircloughs dreidimensionalem Modell zur Diskursanalyse werden Presseaussendungen zu einer öffentlichen Debatte gegen den Strich gelesen. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Pressetexte Ideologie gegen ihren Auftraggeber transportieren, wobei bewiesen wird, dass es mit den Werkzeugen der CDA möglich ist jegliche vorgefasste Interpretation mit textlichen Merkmalen zu untermauern. Daher sind die Resultate einer CD Analyse nicht so sehr abhängig vom Text, sondern vielmehr von der Position und Intention des Forschers. Bedeutung wird in den Text hineingelesen, nicht vom Text abgelesen und daher ist es de facto Interpretation und nicht Analyse die unter der Bezeichnung CDA stattfindet. Zuletzt werden Mittel präsentiert und evaluiert die zur Beseitigung der Schwächen der CDA genutzt werden können, wie etwa die Einbeziehung der Korpuslinguistik.This thesis is an exploration of the scientific value of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA’s interdisciplinary popularity is continuously growing and it is symptomatic for the rise of the critical paradigm in linguistics, thus making it necessary to ask whether CDA fulfills the criteria to be regarded as a scientific theory and method. Following critical rationalism the major criterion for the assessment of its value as a theory is the degree of its falsifiability. CDA’s value as a method, on the other hand, is determined by the criteria of validity and reliability. The paper is composed of an argumentative and an analytic part. The former primarily depicts the two strategies with which critique is obstructed in CDA. First, the emancipatory goal is used to background rationality. Secondly, multiple theoretical resources are fused, whereby each of them is torn out of its original theoretical environment. It is discussed how - fueled by a critical perspective - isolated elements from sociology, the study of literature and linguistic are combined via a patchwork principle to make CDA immune to criticism. The argumentative part also addresses the weaknesses concerning validity, which are largely a result of the belief that pragmatic meaning can be read off from textual features. In the analytic part, which consists of a case study of different press releases, it is shown that CDA also has to struggle with low reliability. Starting out with Fairclough’s three dimensional model for analyzing discourse, press releases in a controversy are read against their grain. It is shown that they convey ideology against the issuer, thereby demonstrating that it is possible to substantiate any preconceived interpretation by using the tools that CDA provides. The results of a CD analysis are not as dependant on the text, as they are on the researcher’s pretext. Meanings are read into the text, not off it and this is why in fact it is interpretation and not analysis that is taking place under the label CDA. Eventually, some possibilities of remedying CDA’s weaknesses such as the inclusion of corpus linguistics are briefly presented and evaluated

Transdimensional Bayesian Attenuation Tomography of the Upper Inner Core

Following the linearized attenuation tomography from our previous study (Pejić et al., 2017, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JB013692), we perform hierarchical transdimensional Bayesian tomography of the upper ≈400 km of the inner core, using 398 globally distributed t∗ estimates. The results are in good agreement with the ones obtained through linearized tomography: they show more complex attenuation pattern than the purely hemispherical one, and the noise estimated from the hierarchical inversion is in good agreement with estimates obtained from the Discrepancy Principle in the previous study. The attenuation pattern we observe gives more weight to the geodynamical models that couple the thermal anomalies of the lowermost mantle to the inner core boundary.Pejic and Hawkins thank the Australian National University for IPRS and APA scholarships that made this research possible

Examining determinants of entrepreneurial intentions in Slovenia: applying the theory of planned behaviour and an innovative cognitive style

The aim of this paper is to present research on determinants of entrepreneurial intentions through the framework of the theory of planned behaviour and an individual innovative cognitive style. By employing the theory of planned behaviour, the authors evaluate how personal attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control can affect one’s intentions to become an entrepreneur. Additionally, the innovative cognitive style is tested as a potentially significant determinant of entrepreneurial intentions. A questionnaire survey was done using the sample of 330 bachelor and master students in economics and business from Slovenia. Research propositions were tested using linear hierarchical regression modelling. The results suggest that personal attitudes towards entrepreneurship, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control are positively related to one’s entrepreneurial intentions. The innovative cognitive style has also been found to be significant in creating one’s intention to become an entrepreneur. The paper extends the current knowledge on entrepreneurial intentions by analysing the exclusive and mutual influence of different factors recognised by the theory of planned behaviour and the innovative cognitive style on entrepreneurial intentions, as well as providing useful insights into antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions in the Slovenian context