This ethnographic, descriptive case study is concerned with an analysis of the Elderhostel experience at one specific university. Questionnaires, evaluation documents, observations, phototographs, and interviews were used in this study to describe the 1988 Elderhostel experience at North Texas State University. Thirty-three persons were initially asked to participate in this study. Twenty-nine agreed and actually completed the questionnaires, and 26 completed the program evaluation. The study is organized and presented in the following manner: Chapter I introduces the study. Chapter II presents a review of related literature addressing those studies directly concerned with the Elderhostel experience, those addressing motivational reasons for participation in adult education, and those dealing with learning abilities, interests, and goals of the elderly in general. Chapter III includes the methods and procedures used to collect and analyze the data. Chapter IV presents the descriptive and statistical analysis of the data, and Chapter V includes the summary, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations that were derived from the analysis. Major findings of this study include a description of the organization and administration of the program, a description of the educational and co-curricular activities offered and how they were evaluated by the participants, and demographic and motivational data of the participants involved. The "average" participant can be described as white, married, female, retired, white-collar background, from an urban community, a mean age of 70, a mean educational level of 16.5 years, and an income in excess of $20,000 annually. The most frequent reason given for attending Elderhostel was "program content," and for attending North Texas State University, the "International Focus." On the basis of the findings of this study it can be concluded that the characteristics of older adults most likely to enroll in educational programs can be identified; the North Texas State University Elderhostel program is meeting the needs and interests of its participants; and the primary motivators for attending Elderhostel are instrumental in nature.

The problem of this research was to investigate David Sills' explanation of membership attrition in voluntary associations. Using the membership population of the Dallas Association for Retarded Citizens from 1969 through 1974, a survey was conducted to determine whether the organizational characteristics of bureaucracy, minority rule, and goal displacement are associated with membership attrition in a selected voluntary association. The findings of this study support Sills' ideas about the association of goal displacement and minority rule with membership attrition in voluntary associations. Bureaucratization, however, was not found to be related to membership attrition.

Private-Law Aspects of Czech Alien Law This thesis is dedicated to Czech alien law regulations in the context of their private law aspects. Alien law is a set of legal norms concerning the legal status of foreign citizens in a territory of a certain state. In general, it is understood as different treatment of aliens than the citizens of that state, a possibility of such treatment, or providing certain advantages to the foreigners. The foundation of this work is a detailed analysis of the material status of foreigners in the scope of their individual and property rights, including a foreigner as a party to a civil suit. Main focus of the thesis is on the description of individual institution and law principles regarding international private and procedural law, taking into account a future regulation from a new norm in international private law. In particular, emphasis is put on an analysis of equal treatment of foreigners, possibilities of refusal of such treatment, principles of reciprocity in the formal and material sense, conditions of the foreigner's claim to be relieved from judicial fees, eligibility of the foreigner as a party to a suit, etc. Special focus has been given to the matters closely related to alien law, such as the definition of an alien, dual citizenship, habitual residence etc....

In recent years EU-citizens living in poverty exercising their right to free movement within EU have gained increased political interest. Some vulnerable EU citizens travel to Sweden in order seek livelihood, some of them engage in begging. The presence of vulnerable EU citizens engaged in begging has generated the emergence of a new policy area with increased political activity at both national and municipal level. Here, a state public report, policy proposals and problematization of the issue at municipal level are analysed. The analysis reveal how begging is constructed as a social problem and how the vulnerable EU citizen is positioned. The political discourse in this policy area is characterized by securitization and individualisation of responsibility, begging is problematized based on notions of welfare nationalism. People who beg are positioned as undeserving and associated with criminality, with few exceptions, the social rights approach is silenced. Begging is mainly constructed as an individual problem and linked to personal deficiencies. Thus, the structural issues such as inequality, discrimination and poverty are also subordinated in the political discourse. Further, the analysis exposes that human rights issues are not taken into account when policies targeting begging are formulated.

Digitization of data offers more opportunities for future health and medicine care due to the availability of information technology in our everyday lives. Several studies have provided us with insights in designing persuasive eHealth services, but only a few studies have investigated the design of a persuasive eHealth application by using presently available smartphones and while including the target group. By pursuing an iterative design process, three smartphone application prototypes were created and tested with senior citizens by using cognitive walkthroughs, use case scenarios and semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that the target group involvement had positive influences on the design of the prototypes, with user insights uncovering setbacks and opportunities in the design. Thus, the study presents a set of primary characteristics for designing a persuasive eHealth application to be usable with smartphones and how the iterative design process with the involvement of senior citizens shaped the design.

O estudo das percepções públicas acerca da polícia é importante por duas razões. Primeiramente porque dado a visibilidade da polícia e o poder de uso da força, sua atuação tem impacto sobre a política, sendo importante para qualificação do regime democrático. Além disso, a forma como a polícia atua e trata os cidadãos é uma das poucas variáveis que estão totalmente sob o controle dos gestores policiais, o que fundamentaria a necessidade de compreender melhor como os indivíduos julgam e percebem a polícia, uma vez que a colaboração dos cidadãos é fundamental efetividade da atividade policial. Essa dissertação visa investigar os determinantes da avaliação da polícia na cidade de São Paulo, na década de 2000. Para isso conta com os dados colhidos em cinco ondas da Pesquisa domiciliar sobre atitudes, normas culturais e valores em relação à violência e violação de direitos humanos, realizada pelo Núcleo de Estudos da Violência da Universidade de São Paulo, nos anos de 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008 e 2010. Como principal resultado tem-se que a percepção de eficiência e de educação na abordagem são as variáveis que melhor explicam a avaliação, consistentemente em todas as cinco ondas do survey analisadas. / The study of public perceptions of the police is important for two reasons. Primarily because given the visibility of the police and the power of using the force, its performance has an impact on politics, being important to qualify the democratic regime. Furthermore, the way the police operates and treats its citizens is one of the few variables that are totally under the control of the police chiefs, which would establish the need to better understand how individuals think and perceive the police, once the collaboration of citizens is fundamental to police activity. This thesis aims to investigate the determinants of the evaluation of police in the city of São Paulo in the 2000s. For this purpose it relies on the data collected in five waves of \"Household survey on attitudes, cultural norms and values in relation to violence and violation of human rights \" held by the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo , in the years of 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2010. As the main result it has that the perception of efficiency and education in approach are the variables that best explain the evaluation consistently in all five waves of the survey analyzed.

The thesis focuses on the segmentation of seniors in their approach to a healthy lifestyle and subsequent application of marketing tools in order to improve this approach of the selected segment. The theoretical part consists of a situation analysis explaining relations among population ageing, health care expenditures, employment and health condition of the population and then mapping of important areas such as quality of life of seniors, their healthy lifestyle and marketing methods associated with these areas. The practical part starts with the segmentation of seniors based on extensive database of the MML - TGI research and using analytical software Data Analyzer both provided by research agency Median. One of created segments is then chosen according to its possibilities of a behavioral change related to healthy lifestyle. The thesis is concluded with a design of a new public health brand and associated campaign both designed in order to appeal to selected segment according to principles of public health branding.

Due to technological advances, local city governments are relying heavily on websites and the Internet to connect with citizens. This project will discuss the relationship between e-government and civic engagement in San Diego county and its effectiveness. E-government is defined as the delivery of a city government’s information and services to its citizens through its website. Civic engagement involves active participation from the citizens and is defined as the interaction between the city government and its citizens. This project will analyze the 18 city websites of San Diego county to determine the effectiveness of each city’s website in providing e-government and civic engagement services. Each website will be rated and ranked, and a detailed recommendation on how the 5 lowest ranking cities can revise their websites to increase civic engagement will be provided. It will be shown that novel approaches such as online civic engagement, financial transparency, and personalized mobile apps not only enhance civic engagement in several city government websites but also receive positive user feedback and high resident satisfaction ratings.

The aim of my diploma thesis was to find out what extent there is to the awareness of emergency care service in the Prachatice territorial administrative district. The thesis is divided into two parts, a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part deals with the emergency care service itself, with the issue of aging, with the needs and life quality of aging people. The qualitative part of the research used the method of a semi-structured interview. Data was analysed via the grounded theory methodology. Ten informants were interviewed. The research file consisted of municipality mayors or responsible workers of municipal offices. Quantitative research has shown that respondents were aware of social services, however, only 25 % were aware of the emergency care service. The interviews also proved that most informants were aware of available social services within Prachatice, however, only a minimum of informants were aware of the specific emergency care service. Acquired information may be useful not only for students of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, but they may as well improve wider population´s awareness, perhaps they may be used within community planning in the individual municipalities of Prachatice.

The avocado production and trade impose economic, social and environmental challenges for producers, and concerns for consumers. This ‘sustainability challenge’ will be analysed from a social- psychological viewpoint. The case study follows a two-method based approach: a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. Laws and restrictions on the avocado production in Mexico exist, still, avocados are not sustainable. The reasons are unveiled by a closer look into the trade agreements and by interviews with the Mexican civil society. The responsibility for the implementation of controls on sustainable avocados is pushed in a circle from the governments to civil society and back. Ideas on how to change the system are mainly based on EU citizens. Can a greater knowledge and awareness of EU citizens improve the sustainable avocado production in Mexico? The survey reveals that only few participants are fully informed and highly interested in eco-friendly produced avocados. The low percentage can be explained through the high costs for certified avocados, the mistrust in the certification system and the lack of the certified fruit in the supermarkets. However, after some background information the participants stated that they would change their behaviour: buying certified avocados, spending more money and going to special supermarkets. To raise awareness and clarify doubts, civil society in Mexico suggested campaigns in cooperation with civil society in the EU. The idea for the campaign is based on behaviourist theories. A further step is a cooperation between EU citizens with civil societies from Mexico and the EU to pressure the government into a system change to support the offer of cheaper certified sustainable avocados in the EU supermarkets, and thus to raise the standards and controls for the avocado production.