THE FACTORS INFLUENCING GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT GROWTH IN THE POST-PANDEMIC PERIOD: THE CASE OF KOSOVO

This paper examined the factors that influenced the Gross Domestic Product growth (GDP) in the post-Covid-19 period in Kosovo. This paper explored the impact of consumption, remittances, exports, imports, and inflation on Kosovo's GDP growth using fixed effects regression analysis with data from various secondary sources to analyze their impact from Kosovo's perspective. The results demonstrated that consumption, remittances, and exports had a statistically significant influence on GDP growth during the post-pandemic economic lockdown stage, whereby imports and inflation had a little inverse relation. Further, the Hausman test statistics on the adequacy of the fixed-effect model selection represent a superior performance compared to the random effect model. The paper is the first that extensively explores the impact of these factors that drove GDP growth in the post-pandemic period in Kosovo's economy. The novelty of this paper is that it recognizes the response of governments to the pandemic and accurately identifies the macroeconomic factors that influenced GDP growth.      &nbsp

PROCEDURAL FEATURES OF THE ALBANIAN CASE LAW ON RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN ARBITRAL AWARDS

The internationalization of goods and services in the last decades have underscored the importance of international commercial arbitration and its enforcement mechanism of the foreign awards. The recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards under the jurisdiction of a state, is mostly provided through the effect of the New York Convention (1958), which is sanctioned today in 146 countries worldwide. Albania has become part of this large group of states which have voluntarily chosen to share the unquestionable values established by the New York Convention in the field of international commercial arbitration. But despite the formal aspect, Albanian jurisprudence clearly shows an unconsolidated experience of the Albanian judiciary in the field of recognition of foreign arbitral awards. This is not only because of the short time coexistence of the Albanian legal order with the Convention, but also because of a limited knowledge of traders on the instruments established by the Convention and because of the judicial system indifference demonstrated toward the Convention traditional interpretation. This article aims to bring in the spotlight the features manifested by the Albanian jurisprudence, regarding the procedural aspects of the recognition of foreign arbitral awards. These aspects have been found by the research of several judicial decisions of the Court of Appeals, upon the requests for recognition of foreign arbitral awards

The Nature and Value of Access to Information Laws in Canada and the EU: Ideals, Practices and Perspectives

This research aims to address the rhetorical claims about transparency and access to information (ATI) by asking questions like: Why they are important, and if they are, are they worth of constitutional protection? The study engages in a doctrinal research with two dimensions, a conceptual and a normative one. The conceptual dimension includes the understanding of the meaning, perceptions, dynamics, tensions and values assigned to transparency and ATI. This dimension is explored through the study of two main jurisdictions (Canada and the EU) and two case studies (Ontario and Albania). The normative dimension in concerned with how the conceptual grounds shape the legal status and protection of ATI, and provides a framework that enables the recognition of ATI as a constitutional right. My analysis focuses on the users of the ATI process, and their practices. The conceptual dimension views transparency and access rights as political and societal constructs. They heavily depend on the political system at place, and their analysis should not start from expectations based on ideals, but potentials. The societal approach focuses on the public space and looks at transparency and ATI as having multiple functions. The thesis provides a set of standards against which the main rhetorical claims about transparency and the actual practice of ATI can be measured. The normative dimension takes a human rights perspective that focuses on the substance and the form. From a substance approach ATI rights are considered necessary and important in Canada. From a form approach Canada has a gap on how rights transform into positive law and penetrate the constitutional structure. This thesis offers a bridge to reconcile the substance and form approach. My argument points to a fundamental dichotomy of a human rights-based approach as found in the difference between an instrumentalist and an intrinsic approach. It argues that the right of ATI deserves recognition from both approaches. However, the thesis argues for the value of the intrinsic approach because it lends itself to a discussion of rights that have the potential to generate and shape ideas, create knowledge and enable engagement and participation

Protection of the Domestic Food & Beverage Industry from Unfair Competition Coming from Foreign Countries

This report analyzes the question of how domestic producers in the food industry can be protected from the unfair competition that comes from foreign producers and countries. Therefore, this project examines the types of barriers most often placed on food commodities and aims to provide insights on how these problems were resolved and most importantly how could they be resolved so that they are not encountered in the future. The methodology used to obtain these results was mainly through interview reports and case reviews. The main findings show that the most often placed barriers to food commodities are SPS, TBT, and import quotas. Moreover, this research project shows the financial losses which amount to exporters when trade barriers are placed to their products. In addition, the findings also show the steps that were taken in remedying the situation and provide the following recommendations so that such problems are encountered less often in the future

How Patriotic Are Albanians? The Comparative Study of Patriotic Attitudes in Albania and the Albanian Diaspora

In today’s post-modern digital world, patriotism may not be as prevalent as in the past. In this thesis, my principal aim is to investigate to what extent Albanians, a nationality to which I belong, identify with a patriotic attitude toward Albania. I chose to focus not only on Albanians who live in the diaspora, like myself, but also on Albanians who live in Albania. I believe that to understand national pride to its fullest, you must study the attitudes of those who live in the country of origin as well as of those who live in the diaspora. Many people who live in a diaspora tend to resonate with an intense feeling of displacement. Through an examination of Albania’s communist era, religious tolerance, nationalism, patriotism, art and diasporic consciousness I want to see how Albanians embody a strong sense of patriotism for their homeland outside of its original borders. This thesis attempts to explore the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of Albanians in Albania and the Albanian diaspora to discover why Albanians manifest such a strong sense of patriotism. To achieve this goal, I take both a historical and an ethnographic approach. I also compare the attitudes of the Albanian adults born during the communist era in Albania between the years of 1960 and 1977 and those of university students born during the post-communist era between the years of 1990 and 1997 to see if different generations have different views on the topic. In my research, I use interviews, surveys, and personal observation to address the general issue of how national and cultural belonging shapes the identity of all Albanians

People’s Cognitive Beliefs and Definitions About Homosexuality

This study aims to explore and analyze the process of defining homosexuality as an act of political implications. Defining the homosexuality influence the terms of social and political debate and implies distinct lines of actions. Qualitative analysis of the individual interviews used in this study shows how people discursively construct opinions about homosexuality. This study includes 10 participants using in-depth interviews and literature review as a research method. Evidence of this study indicates that cognitive beliefs and definitions about homosexuality are related directly and indirectly on attributions of causes that are biological or lifestyle choices in discourses. Surprisingly there is a significant number of responses about homosexuality that are not clearly defined. For some people, homosexuality can purport multiple things and others don’t think that they have the knowledge to give an opinion about the reasons that causes the homosexuality. In order to generate statistical estimates about how prevalent these different patterns of discourse are in the population in large, we must generate survey instruments that are more capable of measuring the complexity of people’s understandings of homosexuality

Exploring the “faces” of Europeanization from an Albanian perspective

Europeanization is a process existent in all countries applying for EU membership, including Albania. This article aims to explore Olsen’s faces of Europeanization by looking at how this process has taken place in Albania and if it has led to substantial changes in the Albanian politics and governance. It has been argued that Europeanization is a dual process that affects both domestic policies and European Union. The article explores this relationship in the Albanian case. It argues that Europeanization in Albania is occurring in an “Albanian fashion-way” with some unique features which are labelled as ‘Europeanization by convenience’

Franjo Tudjman\u27s and Slobodan Milosevic\u27s Operational Code and Leadership Trait Analysis

Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia played a prominent role in the Yugoslav politics and European politics during the 1990s, but the literature on them has advanced confusing interpretations of the two leaders whose political actions affected international politics. This dissertation is the first attempt at developing replicable measures of their psychological characteristics to inform our understanding of the role these two leaders played in Yugoslav and European politics. This dissertation examines the role of Tudjman\u27s and Milosevic\u27s psychological characteristics through at-a-distance analysis of their speeches, for Tudjman to the Croatian Parliament in the 1990s, and for Milosevic to different audiences. Specifically, this dissertation measures Tudjman\u27s and Milosevic\u27s operational code and five leadership traits associated with their operational code: conceptual complexity, distrust, need for power, belief in one\u27s ability to control events, and in-group bias. Through this analysis this dissertation clarifies the controversies in the descriptive histories written on Tudjman and Milosevic, and advance a more precise understanding of their approach to politics and foreign policy

Determinants of Staphylococcus aureus colonization and infection: Characterization of interaction between serine-aspartate containing protein D and human Siglec11 and Siglec16

Staphylococcus aureus is a Gram-positive opportunistic pathogen responsible for a range of infections that can lead to fatal invasive diseases such as pneumonia or osteomyelitis. Approximately 30% of the healthy adult population are persistently colonized by S. aureus strains in their anterior nares. The molecular mechanism underlying S. aureus colonization and infection during its interaction with the host is not fully understood. S. aureus can express several virulence determinants during its interaction with the host and/or host components. One of these virulence determinants is the serine-aspartate containing protein D (SdrD). It can increase S. aureus ability to survive in the blood and during systemic infections. SdrD is important for S. aureus colonization, survival, and infection of the host. Unpublished results have demonstrated a possible interaction between SdrD and various proteins in human blood plasma. One of these proteins was identified as the human protein Siglec16. The biological functions of Siglec16 are mostly unknown however, studies show high identity between extracellular regions of Siglec11 and 16. Therefore, this study also includes the Siglec11 as a possible binding partner of the SdrD in the plasma. The aim of this thesis was to develop the biological tools which will facilitate the characterization of the biological implications of the possible interaction between SdrD and Siglec16 and/or Siglec11. The overall results show a slight progress in obtaining the tools to help in further research in characterizing the biological functions of the proteins Siglec16 and Siglec11. However, some results remain unclear and inconclusive in demonstrating a possible or significant interaction between SdrD and the Siglec proteins 11 and 16

Unriddling Blockchain: A Study of Outcomes, Tensions, and Governance of Blockchain Implementations

From a theoretical perspective, evidence from scholarly articles suggests how the existing body of research focuses mostly on the architectural aspects related to the technology and therefore, there is a grey area in literature linking blockchain with established theories, frameworks or models (Monrat et al., 2019; Pelt, 2021). Despite blockchain having been in the spotlight for over a decade, there is an ongoing concern on the need to widen the discourse on the topic of blockchain beyond the technical features and performance evaluation (Ølnes et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2019). More specifically, in the domain of Information Systems (IS) there has been a continues call to look at blockchain from multidisciplinary approaches in an effort to better interpret the benefits and challenges associated with the technology (Ølnes et al., 2017; Risius & Spohrer, 2017). In this regard, research should dwell further into linking blockchain with different levels of analysis including users, platforms, industries (Risius & Spohrer, 2017) and sociocultural patterns (Ghosh, 2019; Rossi et al., 2019). In this regard, more rigorous empirical studies should center around the unexplored avenues in IS research in order to understand better the implications of blockchain and improve our understanding of the technology (Ghosh, 2019; Lu, 2022). Furthermore, blockchain has been regarded as a potential technology with a series of important techno-social implications, nevertheless, the technology should not be considered bulletproof. Research has demonstrated that whilst blockchain provides important technological innovations, its adoption can be very challenging (Batubara et al., 2018; Spahiu et al., 2022). In this regard, many studies have underlined how theorizing on such challenges is still lacking and more empirical investigation is required in order to have a more concrete understanding of the impeding factors (Zheng et al., 2018; Monrat et al., 2019). Although the number of blockchain applications has exponentially increased, many blockchain initiatives are short lived and more result oriented research on successful case studies is required (Rossi et al., 2019; Treiblmaier, 2020), especially with regard to the role of governance where evaluations have been limited (Beck et al., 2018; Pelt et al., 2021; Lumineau et al., 2021). Lastly, blockchain adoption has not been proportionate in every sector, with public domain and public administration showing particularly low rates of adoption, despite factual evidence displaying blockchain’s potential in such areas. In this regard, current studies have only looked at the inherent nature of these domains but make little reference to the potential challenges related to the blockchain attributes (Navadkar et al., 2018; Cagigas et al., 2021)