Title: The process of leaving a social role Author: Christine Johnsson     This paper aims to describe the process of role exit for individuals within dysfunctional families. The study begins with describing the upbringing of the individual within these families. The process of codependency inspired the approach for the study; a process that individuals go through when they leave their dysfunctional families. The theoretical approach is from Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaughs study about the process of exit a role; Becoming an ex- The process of Role exit (1988). This process that Ebaugh (1988) describes is divided into four stages. The individuals’ first step in the process is to define a doubt to the current role, the second one explains how the individual have to weigh new alternatives compared to the present situation. The third stage is about leaving the role and the fourth stage explains that the individual have to come up with an approach to the ex- role. Since this paper is about individual opinions the method that has been used is qualitative. Ten interviews has been made with individuals that grew up in dysfunctional families. The interviews were analyzed from a phenomenological approach. That means trying to understand social phenomena from the individuals’ perspective. The results presented that the informants had made a role change, they had left the dysfunctional settings and entered a new social role. Which can be compared to Ebaughs study (1988) about the process in role exiting.

In recent years, the expansion of urban area and advances in business and technology have brought about transformation in modern society, democratic reforms and impacts on globalization. At the same time,¡@they also have brought tension upon the society. The interaction and connections between people has distanced with developments in the society, and have created a lack of interest in public affairs and social agenda. In addition, due to lack of government resources,¡@needs of the multitude could not be satisfied. It is thus necessary, through organized mobilization of social forces, to recall public interests in public affairs. Since the martial law lifted in 1987, the public has regained the freedom to organize and associate. Numerous private associations have shot out , particularly non-profit organizations. Due to their ¡§not for profit ¡¨ characteristic, and focus on the welfare of the community, it is effective in motivating participation and devotion. It thus is able to demonstrate the richest vitality of the society and is one of the most important models of civilian participation on community. The objective of this study is to investigate the influences of non-profit organiza- tions building social network on community development. Tree and Trees Community Empowerment Association of Kaohsiung City was the focus of this case study. Through literature review, in-depth interview and observation, an understanding of how non-profit organizations operate through the society has been gained. It has further established how non-profit organizations tap external resources and revitalize community resources to construct a perpetual community life. It is hoped from the study that effective recommendations could be made for other community organizations seeking development. The results of the study are: 1. Social network of the leader: From the organization structure of the association, whether in decision-making, execution and financial support, the more involvement of the community, and participation of core members, the more influences on community events it will have when the network of members is considerable. 2. Autonomous operation: An important criterion of non-profit organization autonomy is financial independence. In addition to donations, the association acquires financial resources by their specialty. This allows the association to operate independently without restriction, not as found in other community development association. 3. Public participation: Community development will go nowhere without human resources. In the process of re- constructing the Kaohsiung Original Botanical Garden, though gaining substantial support from community inhabitants, there are still some who hold cold attitude. Furthermore, civilian interest in public affair is mostly limited to their benefits. There is much more human resource in the community that remains undeveloped and unutilized. This is a common problem faced by non-profit organizations in Taiwan .

Social capital is the value of the relationships we create and maintain within our social networks to gain access to and mobilize needed resources (e.g., jobs, moral support). Quantifying, and subsequently leveraging, social capital are challenging problems in the social sciences. Most work so far has focused on analyses from static surveys of limited numbers of participants. The explosion of online social media means that it is now possible to collect rich data about people's connections and interactions, in a completely ubiquitous, non-intrusive manner. Such dynamic social data opens the door to the more accurate measuring and tracking of social capital. Similarly, online data is replete with additional personal data, such as topics discussed in blogs or hobbies listed in personal profiles, that is difficult to obtain through standard surveys. Such information can be used to discover similarities, or implicit affinities, among individuals, which in turn leads to finer measures of social capital, including the often useful distinction between bonding and bridging social capital. In this work, we exploit these opportunities and propose a computational framework for quantifying and leveraging social capital in online communities. In addition to being dynamic and formalizing the notion of implicit affinities, our framework significantly extends current social network analysis research by modeling access and mobilization of resources, the essence of social capital. The main contributions of our framework include 1) hybrid networks that provide a way for potential and realized social capital to be distinguished; 2) the decoupling of bonding and bridging social capital, a formulation previously overlooked which coincides with empirical evidence; 3) the unification of multiple views on social capital, in particular, the seamless integration of resources. We demonstrate the broad applicability of our framework through a number of representative, real-world case studies to test relevant social science hypotheses. Assuming that the extraction of implicit affinities may be useful for community building, we built a large social network of blogs from an active, tech-oriented segment of the Blogosphere, using cross-references among blogs. We then used topic modeling techniques to extract an implicit affinity network based on the content of the blogs, and showed that potential sub-communities could be formed through increased bonding. A widespread assumption in sociology is that bonding is more likely than bridging in social networks. In other words, people are more likely to seek out others who are like them than attempt to link to those they share little or nothing with. We wanted to test that hypothesis, particularly in the context of online communities. Using Twitter, we created an experiment where hand-crafted accounts would tweet at regular intervals and use varied following strategies, including following only those with maximum affinity, following only those with no affinity, following random users, etc. Using the number of follow-backs as a surrogate for social capital, we showed that the assumed physical social behavior is also prevalent online, p < 0.01. There is much interest in computational social science to compare physical and cyber behaviors, test existing hypotheses on a large scale and design novel experiments. The advent of social media is also impacting public health, with growing evidence that some global health issues (e.g., H1N1 outbreak) may be discovered and tracked more efficiently by monitoring the content of social exchanges (e.g., blogs, tweets). In collaboration with colleagues from Health Sciences, we wanted to test whether broadly applicable health topics were discussed on Twitter, and to design and guide the process of discovering such themes. We gathered a large number of tweets over several regions of the United States over a one-month period, and analyzed their content using topic modeling techniques. We found that while clearly not a mainstream topic, health concerns were non-negligible on Twitter. By further focusing on tobacco, we discovered several subtopics related to tobacco (e.g., tobacco use promotion, addiction recovery), which indicate that analysis of the Twitter social network may help researchers better understand how Twitter promotes both positive and negative health behaviors. Finally, in collaboration with colleagues from Linguistics, we wanted to quantify the effect of social capital on second language acquisition in study abroad. Using questionnaire data collected from about 200 study abroad participants, we found that students participating in bridging relationships had significantly higher levels of language improvement than their counterparts, F(1,201) = 12.53, p < .0001.

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It is widely accepted that cognitive abilities decline with normal aging. At the same time it is also recognized that there is variability in the magnitude and rate of decline among aging individuals. A similar phenomenon exists for dementia, where individuals with similar neuropathologic burden present with varying degrees of cognitive impairment. Of importance is determining what factors account for this variability, and whether individuals can modify these factors in order to preserve their cognitive abilities with aging or delay the onset of dementia. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine three potentially modifiable lifestyle factors' association with age-related differences/change in cognitive performance and risk for dementia by conducting three separate studies. The first study examined the association between engagement in lifestyle activities and concurrent cognitive speed performance. The second study examined whether there are differential associations between social resource factors and change in cognitive performance. The final study estimated the risk of late-life dementia in Swedish twins as a function of fruit and vegetable consumption in midlife. Taken together, the results of these studies provide evidence that individuals may be able to protect themselves against age-related cognitive decline or dementia by modifying their lifestyle. Specifically, individuals may benefit their cognitive speed performance by engaging in more cognitively demanding activities. Declines in episodic memory performance may be alleviated by being more satisfied with social support, and declines in general cognitive performance and speed and attention in young-old adults may be attenuated by having a larger social network of friends. Finally, the risk of all types of dementia and Alzheimer's disease may be reduced by consuming a moderate amount of fruits and vegetables in the diet, especially for females, those with self-reported angina, and those who consumed alcohol in midlife. These findings contribute to the literature on potential strategies to maintain cognitive health with aging and serve as groundwork for future intervention studies.

For family caregivers, response to the death of the care recipient is marked by a high degree of variability. In recognition of this variability, a range of services and interventions is available to assist individuals in the adjustment to bereavement. The present dissertation, consisting of three related studies, was conducted to examine the utilization of bereavement services by family caregivers. The first study examined the role of psychological distress in the utilization of bereavement services by spousal caregivers in the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study. The second study examined bereavement service utilization among dementia caregiver participants in the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH) study. Both employed Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Services Use. The third study examined bereavement service utilization, barriers, and preferences among bereaved spousal caregivers of patients of three hospices in Tampa Bay. Taken together, results of the current studies point to the importance of family physicians and members of the clergy in the provision of services to bereaved family caregivers and to the prominent role of bereavement outcomes (e.g., depressive symptoms, grief) as need factors in the utilization of bereavement services.

The purpose of this study was two fold: (1) to examine how the distribution of resources within and outside an Enhanced Language Training Program (ELT) affected a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development; and (2) to discuss ensuing pedagogical and curricular implications for the ELT Program. The relationship between the distribution of resources and a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development was studied through a hybrid of two frameworks: van Dijk’s (2005) digital divide and Warschauer’s (2004) social inclusion. The key findings were that the distribution of resources affected access four ways: (1) resources affected multiple types of access, (2) the effect of resource distribution on access was both cumulative and successive, (3) distribution of resources could either facilitate or impede access, and (4) Internet literacy development could potentially increase or decrease the resources. The findings resulted in implications for the ELT program and teaching.

The purpose of this study was two fold: (1) to examine how the distribution of resources within and outside an Enhanced Language Training Program (ELT) affected a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development; and (2) to discuss ensuing pedagogical and curricular implications for the ELT Program. The relationship between the distribution of resources and a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development was studied through a hybrid of two frameworks: van Dijk’s (2005) digital divide and Warschauer’s (2004) social inclusion. The key findings were that the distribution of resources affected access four ways: (1) resources affected multiple types of access, (2) the effect of resource distribution on access was both cumulative and successive, (3) distribution of resources could either facilitate or impede access, and (4) Internet literacy development could potentially increase or decrease the resources. The findings resulted in implications for the ELT program and teaching.

The purpose of this study was two fold: (1) to examine how the distribution of resources within and outside an Enhanced Language Training Program (ELT) affected a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development; and (2) to discuss ensuing pedagogical and curricular implications for the ELT Program. The relationship between the distribution of resources and a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development was studied through a hybrid of two frameworks: van Dijk’s (2005) digital divide and Warschauer’s (2004) social inclusion. The key findings were that the distribution of resources affected access four ways: (1) resources affected multiple types of access, (2) the effect of resource distribution on access was both cumulative and successive, (3) distribution of resources could either facilitate or impede access, and (4) Internet literacy development could potentially increase or decrease the resources. The findings resulted in implications for the ELT program and teaching.

The purpose of this study was two fold: (1) to examine how the distribution of resources within and outside an Enhanced Language Training Program (ELT) affected a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development; and (2) to discuss ensuing pedagogical and curricular implications for the ELT Program. The relationship between the distribution of resources and a group of newcomers’ access to Internet literacy development was studied through a hybrid of two frameworks: van Dijk’s (2005) digital divide and Warschauer’s (2004) social inclusion. The key findings were that the distribution of resources affected access four ways: (1) resources affected multiple types of access, (2) the effect of resource distribution on access was both cumulative and successive, (3) distribution of resources could either facilitate or impede access, and (4) Internet literacy development could potentially increase or decrease the resources. The findings resulted in implications for the ELT program and teaching.