The Interfaith Council for Social Cohesion in the Western Balkans

With the demise of the communist governments in the Balkan region in the early 1990s, we have entered a phase in which serious religiously related issues challenging the social cohesion of our societies need serious analysis and action at different levels. Interfaith councils as a way of engaging the different religious communities in one society are not new and not the same. Nor are they unquestionably accepted or easily dismissed as ineffective in addressing challenges of peacebuilding and social cohesion in a religiously pluralistic society. There are political, cultural, ethnic and national considerations beside religious and educational ones which figure large in the role of an interfaith council and influence its character and effectiveness, but their contribution to peacebuilding and the social cohesion of our pluralistic societies cannot be ignored. As such this paper will explore, from different perspectives, the role of an interfaith council as a helpful instrument for the wellbeing of our societies. The virtues of an interfaith council discussed in this paper should give us hope for fruitfully addressing the challenge of different traditions in the same social space, but it remains to be seen if it can win the support of the majority culture’s stakeholders with their concerns in providing for a peaceful and harmonious society. The Albanian context with its similarities and differences from the religious pluralistic context of the other countries in the region provides a good case study to evaluate the merits of an interfaith council as an instrument to facilitate tolerance and social cohesion

Protestant Reformation and Albanian Nationalism

The relationship of the Protestant Reformation with Nationalism is understandable if one can appreciate the nature of the general emancipation from the authority as understood during the Middle Ages to the subjectively defined authority that the Reformation brought forth. The connection of the emancipating influence of the Reformation with the Albanian National Awakening is made more clear if one understands not only the thought patterns typically associated with the Reformation, but also some historical dimensions of the Albanian language and education. Therefore, we propose here the thesis that the influence of the Protestant Reformation is discernable also in the history of Albanian Nationalism

Building STEM Equity and Identity in the Community

Numerous obstacles contribute to the underrepresentation of racial, ethnic, and gender groups in science and technology fields. However, addressing these barriers is complex and multifactorial. As part of their exploration of intersectionality and leadership, seniors in biology investigated different factors that initiate and sustain interest and engagement in STEM fields. They applied this knowledge by re-envisioning classroom activities and resources to align with best practices that encourage the development of STEM identity in underrepresented groups. These activities are being compiled into a resource handbook for Indianapolis-area teachers and will be part of an ongoing service outreach project for biology undergraduates

Impact of mobility in ad hoc protocol design

Protocols in ad hoc networks are not designed with mobility in mind. Recent research reveals that mobility impacts all the layers of the protocol stack. Specifically, more realistic mobility models that are extracted from real user traces for the vehicular and pedestrian scenarios show that wireless nodes tend to cluster around popular locations. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. First, it suggests cross layer design, as a promising approach, in designing ad hoc protocols with mobility in mind. Therefore, it provides a survey of the methodologies used in wireless cross layer studies. Second, it presents a framework for cross layer and flexible ad hoc protocol design, which integrates mobility into protocol design

MixMobGen: a realistic mixed traffic mobility generator for ad hoc network simulations

Recently, performance evaluation of ad hoc network protocols is done using realistic mobility and traffic models, thus improving the validity and credibility of wireless simulation studies. In this paper we design and implement MixMobGen, a mobility generator for ad hoc vehicular applications, which takes into account mixed vehicular conditions. This is the first mobility model that takes into account, both, slow and fast vehicles. While speed for highway traffic has been modeled following a normal distribution, two studies on the mixed traffic show that speed follows a multimodal or bimodal distribution, instead. In this paper we a) design and implement MixMobGen, a realistic mobility generator that models mixed traffic conditions. b) evaluate protocol performance in 802.11 network protocols using NS 2 simulator.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

HAP: a heterogeneous ad hoc protocol

Ad hoc wireless networks are becoming an important infrastructure for developing networking applications due to their decentralized nature, improved scalability as compared to wireless managed networks, minimal configuration and fast deployment. However, such networks show several limitations regarding their capacity and are, in general, impractical for stand alone commercial applications; in fact, such networks are mostly used for emergency applications. However, the features of ad hoc networks can be useful to extend the connectivity of wireless networks, while taking into account node mobility. In this paper we propose a Heterogeneous Ad hoc Protocol (HAP), which aims to extend the connectivity of a wireless networks. HAP is a cross layer protocol that operates on the link, MAC, and network layers, which takes into account the impact of the mobility on each of these layers. The objective of HAP is thus to overcome limitations of existing protocols, especially regarding mobility. HAP can be useful for developing applications in pedestrian and community networks.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Unpacking psychological inequalities in organisations:Psychological capital reconsidered

In this paper, we argue that psychological capital is unequally distributed among people from different social classes, ethnic backgrounds and genders. Confronting the limitations of the current, individualistic perspective on psychological capital, we offer a re-conceptualisation of the construct from a critical, interdisciplinary perspective, placing it at the intersection of sociology and psychology. We discuss the various mechanisms through which social inequalities may cause differential access to psychological capital for members of low- and high-status social groups and show how this differential access to psychological capital results in and exacerbates social inequalities. By doing this, we postulate a recursive theory on psychological capital that both recognises the formative effect of socio-organisational structures on one's psychology and vice versa

Unemployment and the impact of Government Policies in reducing unemployment in Albania

Unemployment is the phenomenon that has been reported everywhere recently and has affected the various layers of population around the world. The focus of this study is to treat one of the problems facing the economy of a country and human society, unemployment. The subject of the thesis is: "Unemployment and Government Policies in Albania." The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of unemployment or financial stability in Albania based on factual reasons taken from studies accompanied for this period and analysis of employment policies over the years that have accompanied by unemployment in our country. Over the last decade, Albania has had a steady increase in unemployment, in this context what will be considered during the thesis work is what has happened over the years, taking into consideration the period after the 90s to nowadays. Our study is an analysis, descriptive and comparative one that will follow an analytical approach to the level of unemployment in the post-90s’ period until nowadays, what is the ground of it, in what level was the unemployment and what were the initiatives taken to reduce it and bring it closer to the natural unemployment rate. At the end of this study will be highlighted some points including the importance of studying and trainings to increase the level of education, the gap of salaries and efficiency between male and female gender distribution and the impacts of increasing the flexibility of the policy for jobseekers

The Role of CBX5 in Head and Neck Cancer Cell Phenotypic Expression

•Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) have remained one of the common and lethal cancers around the world. •HNSCC rapidly spread via the lymphatics system, leading to a higher percentage of initial late-stage diagnoses and poor prognoses for patients. •CBX5 is downregulated highly metastatic breast cancers and may repress metastatic phenotypes •It is unclear what role is may have in HNSCC, or which specific functions of CBX5 drive its antimetastatic role. •We aim to map molecular changes to phenotypic expression in order to provide better diagnostic prognoses for different HNSCC cell types as well as possible pharmacologic targets for treatment