SummaryThis study investigates the contributions of Österängens Konsthall to social cohesion withinthe Jönköping community, focusing on fostering a sense of belonging and encouragingparticipation. The research applies Jenson’s (1998) framework on social cohesion,emphasizing the dimensions of participation and sense of belonging. It investigates thecentral research question – In what ways do Österängens Konsthall's initiatives seek tocontribute to social cohesion within the Jönköping community, in terms of fostering a senseof belonging and participation?A qualitative approach involves in-depth semi-structured interviews with therepresentatives of Österängens Konsthall and provides insights into the initiatives andstrategies used by the institution.The findings highlight that Österängens Konsthall seeks to play an important role inenhancing community involvement, participation and fostering a sense of belonging throughdifferent initiatives, including public art projects, exhibitions, workshops, and communitygarden activities. These initiatives are thoughtfully tailored, considering the local contextand the needs of diverse communities while promoting environmental awareness andcommunity pride.However, the study also identified challenges, including resource constraints, highresidential mobility within the area, and the absence of formal strategic documents andevaluation mechanisms. The research emphasizes the importance of understandingcommunity perspectives and recommends future studies focus on learning insights fromÖsterängens Konsthall beneficiaries.Overall, research provides valuable insights into understanding the role of culturalinstitutions and possible ways they can be empowered to enhance the social cohesion process.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第25142号 / 理博第5049号 / 新制||理||1719(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科生物科学専攻 / (主査)教授 中川 尚史, 教授 高橋 淑子, 准教授 中村 美知夫 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

yes / The conference Participation and Community Cohesion in the North: making the connections was held two and a half years after the North of England experienced a summer of major social unrest.1 One delegate described these disturbances as `attempted suicide by a community ¿ a cry for help.¿ This is a controversial image of powerlessness and disenfranchisement, but it raises a question that goes to the heart of our reasons for holding this conference. Does the success of Community Cohesion depend on the ability of communities to nonviolently express their views on the issues that concern them? Does it depend on a belief in one¿s own power to effect change without violence? In other words does it depend on the extent to which people see a point in working together for goals they have set themselves?

Since the publication 20 years ago of reports, which identified parallel living between diverse communities in northern towns, including Bradford, there has been increasing concern about how difference can be accommodated alongside commitment to a collaborative, national enterprise. I examine this conundrum, with the assistance of a cohort of 18 people whose families hail from India and Pakistan, from the perspective of the Council of Europe’s recognition of the duty of the immigrant to integrate. I do this by considering how a sense of ethnic social group identity may constrain meaningful engagement in wider society. Framing this sense of ethnic social group identity is distance of the heart, the term coined by one of the cohort to explain ongoing emotional ties to homeland, long after migration, which have the potential to distract from total commitment to society here. My primary question was: what factors, inherent in ethnic social group identity, and elaborated by the term distance of the heart, may have shaped the experience of integration of Asian communities in Bradford? My secondary research questions explore how sense of belonging and home, parallel living, religion, heritage language usage, cultural endogamy, and caste and clan allegiances may impact integration. Utilising a critical realist approach I identify factors, or mechanisms, underpinning ethnic social group identity, which help to sustain minority exclusivity and result in a sense of living on the edge. However, my findings challenge assumptions about the dangers of parallel living by suggesting these can be trumped by agential choice. I found that while cohort members have a strong sense of ethnic identity, and commitment to minority community, they also engage with people from other communities and describe a British identity, which encompasses their ethnic identity. This demands a more nuanced response to parallel living, which treats it as a characteristic of, rather than a barrier to, cohesion.

Cohesion and coherence are important features for effective writing. Studies in contrastive rhetoric and text linguistics suggest that cohesion and coherence may vary across languages and cultures. This study examined cohesion and coherence features of Chinese ESL writings, explored the similarities and the differences between Chinese and English, and investigated the role of language transfer and interference in Chinese ESL writings. Four Chinese graduate students each composed two expository essays in English and two in Chinese and their writing sessions were videotaped. Essays were scrutinized for cohesion and coherence features, and along with transcripts, interviews and observations, they were examined for evidence of transfers and interferences. Findings indicate that the Chinese language depends more on lexical ties and similarities of structures whereas English employs more connectors. References in Chinese often take the form of lexical repetition and sometimes zero anaphora while English uses more pronouns and deictics. In addition, more ellipses are utilized in Chinese. Coherence features show that Chinese essays are more implicit and general while English writings emphasize explicitness with thesis statements and topic sentences. Chinese writings are writer-centered, and demand more of the reader to make sense of the text. Interferences and transfers were identified. Students were unable to use a variety of connectors that English offers in their own writings and often connections were missing and sometimes misleading. They occasionally failed to mark sentence boundaries; their essays often lacked a clearly defined thesis; and topic sentences were rarely used. The discussion was general, implicit, and writer-centered. / Ed. D.

Virtual teams in industry are increasingly being used to develop software, create products, and accomplish tasks. However, analyzing those collaborations under same-time/different-place conditions is well-known to be difficult. In order to overcome some of these challenges, this research was concerned with the study of collaboration-based, content-based and temporal measures and their ability to predict cohesion within global software development projects. Messages were collected from three software development projects that involved students from two different countries. The similarities and quantities of these interactions were computed and analyzed at individual and group levels. Results of interaction-based metrics showed that the collaboration variables most related to Task Cohesion were Linguistic Style Matching and Information Exchange. The study also found that Information Exchange rate and Reply rate have a significant and positive correlation to Task Cohesion, a factor used to describe participants' engagement in the global software development process. This relation was also found at the Group level. All these results suggest that metrics based on rate can be very useful for predicting cohesion in virtual groups. Similarly, content features based on communication categories were used to improve the identification of Task Cohesion levels. This model showed mixed results, since only Work similarity and Social rate were found to be correlated with Task Cohesion. This result can be explained by how a group's cohesiveness is often associated with fairness and trust, and that these two factors are often achieved by increased social and work communications. Also, at a group-level, all models were found correlated to Task Cohesion, specifically, Similarity+Rate, which suggests that models that include social and work communication categories are also good predictors of team cohesiveness. Finally, temporal interaction similarity measures were calculated to assess their prediction capabilities in a global setting. Results showed a significant negative correlation between the Pacing Rate and Task Cohesion, which suggests that frequent communications increases the cohesion between team members. The study also found a positive correlation between Coherence Similarity and Task Cohesion, which indicates the importance of establishing a rhythm within a team. In addition, the temporal models at individual and group-levels were found to be good predictors of Task Cohesion, which indicates the existence of a strong effect of frequent and rhythmic communications on cohesion related to the task. The contributions in this dissertation are three fold. 1) Novel use of Temporal measures to describe a team's rhythmic interactions, 2) Development of new, quantifiable factors for analyzing different characteristics of a team's communications, 3) Identification of interesting factors for predicting Task Cohesion levels among global teams.

Regional policy is one of the most important activities of the European Union. The fundaments of the regional policy can be found already in the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community from 1957, in whose preamble states commit themselves to reinforce the unity of their national economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing differences between individual regions. Above all, the regional policy attempts to equate differences among different developed regions through financial assistance, which they obtain both from national funds as well as supra-national funds. To key goals of the Regional policy belongs the reduction of differences in average incomes, unemployment, regional development and related satisfaction of public needs. On 1st February 1995, the Agreement on the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union became valid, and this was a fundamental impulse for the development of regional policy in relation with the possible drawing of financial means from supra-national sources. For this purpose, there was established the Ministry of Regional Development, which became the central coordinator for the use of means from the European Union. In the framework of the new program period, its position was reinforced. Thus, since 2004, the Czech Republic began...

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Walter R. Schumm / Abstract This study seeks to clarify a controversy in the literature about which characteristics of families are most responsible for facilitating the development of empathy in children. The study utilized a correlational research design and self-report questionnaires. The Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale measured the criterion variable, subjects’ levels of emotional empathy. The Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems’ accompanying questionnaire, the fourth version of the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES IV) measured the two key predictor variables, levels of family cohesion and family flexibility, in the subjects’ families of origin. The central hypothesis of the Circumplex Model is that healthy family functioning would be predicted by balanced functioning on both of these key dimensions of family life. The first predictor variable, family cohesion, appears to encompass those factors emphasized by researchers who have asserted that positive family affective bonds would be the family characteristic most predictive of higher levels of empathy in children. The second predictor variable, family flexibility, appears to encompass those factors emphasized by researchers who have asserted that the style of parental discipline would be the family characteristic most predictive of higher levels of empathy in children. Participants in this study were all students at a mid-size, public, Midwestern university. A purposive convenience sample was utilized. Correlational statistics and multiple regression analyses were used to test hypotheses. The results suggested several conclusions. Balanced levels of family cohesion were positively associated with higher levels of emotional empathy, as predicted. The prediction that balanced levels of family flexibility would also be positively associated with higher levels of emotional empathy was not supported. Instead, higher levels of empathy were associated with a somewhat strict or rigid style of parental discipline. Various alternative explanations for these results are discussed, as are limitations of the study, recommendations for future research, and implications for practitioners.

Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)