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In this paper I would like to raise the question at which extent the Union's cohesion policy can promote convergence within the Union. I will discuss major aspects of an analysis on the justification and of the design of the Union's cohesion policy. For this purpose recent empirical data and policies will be investigated. The paper will focus on the weaker Member States of the European Union. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

Object-Oriented design and development dominates both commercial and open source software projects. One of the principal goals of object-oriented design is to aid reuse, and hence, reduce future maintenance efforts of software systems. However, the on-going maintenance of large-scale software systems (both changes and faults) continues to be a significant proportion of the lifecycle of the system and the total investment cost. Understanding and thus being able to predict - or even reduce - the impact of the contributing factors of future maintenance efforts of a software system is thus highly beneficial to software practitioners. In this Thesis we empirically study a large, commercial software system with the principal aim to determine the contributing factors to the change and fault propensity over a three-year period. We consider the object-oriented design context of the software, specifically its inheritance characteristics, coupling and cohesion properties, object-oriented design pattern participation, and size. We also explore the effect of refactoring and test classes in the software. Our results show that several aspects of the design context of a class have an impact to the change and fault-proneness of the software. Specifically, we show that classes with high afferent or efferent coupling are more change and fault-prone; we also identify a number of design patterns whose participants tend to have a higher change and fault propensity than non-participants and we identify a range of inheritance characteristics (in terms of depth of inheritance and number of children) that result in an increase to change and fault-proneness. Furthermore we show that refactoring is a commonly occurring maintenance activity, although it is largely limited to simpler types of refactorings. Finally, we provide some insight into the co-evolution of production and test code during refactoring.

The main a i m of this stud y is to contri bute t o the e x pl i cation of the central discourse notion , ' co herence ' , by comparing t he d e ns i ties of differen t te xtual features in more cohe rent a nd l e s s cohe rent studen t a c ademic writing . The l a tte r ty pe of writing i s defined as that sub-genre of e x posi t ory wr i ting tha t is required f rom studen ts in the study o f "co ntent " sub j ects , with composition writi ng e xcluded . A corpus o f studen t academ i c te x t s was assessed i mpressionistic al ly f or c ohere nce by three rater s, using Bamberg ' s Ho lis t i c Coherence Sca l e ( Bamberg 1983 ; 1984) as a gu id e , an d s o eac h t e x t ' s Holi stic Coherence Rat ing (HCR ) was der i v ed . The te x t ual fea tu r es investiga t ed are r e f erence and c onjuncti ve cohes i o n and errors in these domains, a n d also relat i onal coherence, th i s l atter term ref erring to the wa y s in whic h the funct i onal units of te x t cohere wit h one another in terms of binary r elation s (c f . Crombie 1985a; 1985 b) such as Reason-Res ult a nd Means- Purpose. One of the k e y bac kground assumptions of the study is that te xts are c ommunicati ve phenomena , and a f ter a cr i tical review of various approac hes t owards the e x p li cation of ' coherence ' in text l inguistics and in quanti t ative ( corpus-based) writing research, an a n al y t i cal f ramework is developed in which subcategories of reference and conjunctive cohesion, and errors in these domains, are defined not only formally, but also in terms of how they function in the conte x t of communication - with specific reference to the pragmatic conte x t of student academic writing . Relational coherence is also included i n this framework, and the study develops a measure for the quantification of the amount of relational coherence in a text - the Relational Coherence Quotient. Sample analyses demonstrating the application of the framework to the texts form part of the study. The main findings of the study are: that the application of the analytical framework identifies considerably more features that correlate significantly with Holistic Coherence Ratings than do two other quantitative writing research approaches; that the functionally defined features correlate more significantly with the HCR ' s than the formally defined features; and that the most strongly significant correlation with HCR ' s was revealed by relational coherence, as quantified by the Relational Coherence Quotient. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil.(Linguistics)

This research investigated the relationship between group size and the process of trust, cohesion, and commitment formation in joint-task groups. Specifically, the theory proposes that groups with greater six members will produce lower trust, cohesion, and commitment than those smaller than six members. Theory was developed linking group size to these processes through the mechanism of anticipated mutual perception, the amount an individual considers what others are thinking about them. Two experimental studies test the impact of anticipated mutual perception on interpersonal influence and trust, cohesion, and commitment. Study 1 tested the impact of being able to see a partner and closeness to a partner on a partner's level of influence over participants. Participants were more influenced by partners they could see than by partner's who were separated from the participant by place or time. Status differences also affected influence, even when partners were absent, having left information for use by participants. Study 2 investigated how group size affected participant reports of interpersonal trust, cohesion, and commitment to other group members. Results suggest that members of larger groups had lower commitment to other group members, and that groups larger than six members were negatively associated with levels of trust reported by group members. Further, measures used to isolate aspects of anticipated mutual perception were shown to affect the development of interpersonal trust, cohesion, and commitment, in support of the theory. Group cohesion was found to vary with expectations of competence. These expectations significantly predicted measures of shared awareness capturing aspects of anticipated mutual perception, possibly offsetting negative effects of increasing group size. Study 2 also found evidence that group members prefer to work with groups made up of 4-6 members, consistent with the theory. This research has implications for the ways in which organizations structure group work. This research suggests that the size of the group as well as the characteristics of individuals and their interaction partners may affect how people form cohesive relationships. Trust is an important aspect of groups that promotes cooperation, commitment, and collective identity formation. Further, this research supports a growing literature on the ways that micro-interaction promotes commitment to organizations by promoting or detracting from attributions of positive sentiment to smaller, nested groups within those organizations.

Research has demonstrated that taking care of a patient with schizophrenia has serious mental health costs to caregivers including high levels of burden and poorer overall mental health. Research also indicates that caregivers from certain ethnic/racial groups may fare better in this process. Specifically, prior research indicates that African American and Hispanic caregivers often exhibit better mental health than their Caucasian counterparts. Using a sample of 176 caregivers of patients with schizophrenia, the present study was specifically aimed at examining whether three variables (caregiver burden, family cohesion and interdependence) may account for part of the formerly observed ethnic/racial differences in psychological outcomes. Study hypotheses pertaining to ethnicity/race and family cohesion were not supported. For the most part, minorities in this study did not demonstrate better mental health outcomes than Caucasians and family cohesion did not predict mental health outcomes. However, in line with study hypotheses, we did find that subjective burden mediated the relationship between objective burden and mental health. In other words, subjective appraisals of caregiving appear to partially underlie the association between concrete costs of caregiving and psychological outcomes in schizophrenia caregivers. Also as expected, we found that interdependence moderated the relationship between objective burden and subjective burden. This finding suggests that helping caregivers to value harmony and connection with others over individual self-interests may reduce the likelihood that objective stressors (which are often inevitable in schizophrenia) will result in subjective distress.

Although schizophrenia is a biologically-based disorder, environmental stress (including stress within familial relationships) plays a major role in the onset and maintenance of symptoms. This study examined family variables that have implications for psychotherapeutic treatment of schizophrenia. Previous research has found Communication Deviance (CD), Expressed Emotion (EE), and family cohesion (FC) to be related to symptom severity. However, the exact nature of the relationship between these constructs is unclear. The current study tested a model whereby the tone and content of family member’s communication (EE) and the sense of family unity (FC) are hypothesized to mediate the relationship between CD and psychiatric symptoms. This model stems from the theory that high CD is likely to be experienced as frustrating because it hinders relatives’ communication goals. Thus, relatives may resort to more critical and hostile methods of expressing their thoughts (High EE). Simultaneously, inability to share experiences in a clear manner may lead patients and family members to feel more disconnected (low FC). High EE and low FC in turn were hypothesized to lead to increased symptoms. This study did not find support for the above model. Communication Deviance was not related to severity of psychiatric symptoms, and Expressed Emotion and family cohesion were also unrelated to communication deviance and psychiatric symptoms in the larger model. Higher family cohesion was related to fewer psychiatric symptoms when looking at individual correlations, but this relationship disappeared once other variables were included in analyses. The largely null study findings may be due to limited variance in many of our primary study variables (e.g., CD, family cohesion). Other explanations are also entertained.

The purpose of this thesis is to achieve a greater understanding of how the social workers at the family unit in one of Stockholm municipalities comprehend the work environment at the workplace. Our aim is also to find out how the work environment can affect the health of the social workers in the form of their wellbeing and comfort at the workplace. In order to answer our purpose we conducted interviews of all social workers at the family unit in one of Stockholm municipalities that describe how they experience the work-environment in the workplace and how it influences their health.  We have analyzed the interview material in a thematic analysis based on three theoretical perspectives; SOC, claim – control - support and Human relations. We have also coupled the interview material to the background chapter in this thesis that describes how a good working environment should be structured.  The chosen method characterizes an abductive process. Our finding shows a relation between work-environment and health. This is evidence for that all social workers at the family unit experiences that the work- environment affects their health in the form of wellbeing and comfort. Furthermore, it appears that the unity among the group at work is perceived as an important factor within the work-environment as it has an influence on the health of social workers. In the discussion part, we highlight possible formulated questions that have not had space earlier in the thesis.

När en individ känner tillhörighet till en grupp ökar det individens psykiska välbefinnande, bland annat individens självkänsla. Syftet med denna studie var att se om tillhörighet till det svenska samhället ökade individens självkänsla. Därför undersöktes sambandet mellan tillhörighet till det svenska samhället och självkänsla. Deltagarna var 134 vuxenstuderande, varav 57 svenskar och 77 immigranter. Det fanns ett positivt samband mellan tillhörighet och självkänsla, dock var det ingen skillnad mellan svenskar och immigranter. Svenskar skattade högre tillhörighet än immigranter. Kvinnor skattade högre tillhörighet än män, detta kan bero på att män har svårare att anpassa sig än kvinnor enligt Güngör och Bornstein (2009). Det fanns ingen skillnad på självkänsla hos immigranter och svenskar, dock hade männen från båda grupperna högre självkänsla än kvinnorna. Studien visade att individens känsla av tillhörighet till det svenska samhället var relaterat till individens självkänsla. Dock kan man inte utifrån denna studie fastställa om det var individens upplevda tillhörighet till det svenska samhället som påverkade individens självkänsla, eller om det var individens självkänsla som påverkade individens upplevda tillhörighet.

In the course of the European Commission’s aim at planning for economic territorial cohesion, an increased accessibility of the European regions and a strengthening of the regions’ competitiveness, focus have been drawn on the improvement of infrastructure for transport. This research deals with what can be seen as a pre-discourse in the front end of a planning process for a future transport corridor between the cities of Hamburg and Stockholm, during which the actors are positioning themselves. This is done by a qualitative analysis of selected policy documents from the national, regional and municipal level in Sweden, Denmark and Germany and the European commission. The results indicate that the actors involved interpret the concept of a transport corridor in various ways, since the policy documents that have been analysed for this research reveal possible inherent conflicts. The most considerable differences can be seen between the authorities on the national level on the one hand and the authorities on the regional and municipal level on the other. However, the location of a municipality or region does also influence their interpretation of a future transport corridor.