Prevalence rates of overweight and obesity in Maltese adolescents are amongst the highest in the world. Stress-induced eating and dysfunctional coping skills have been linked to overeating and obesity. This study was undertaken in two phases. Phase 1 examined the relationship between perceived stress, coping and eating behaviours in Maltese adolescents and devised a model to guide the development of an effective Internet-based intervention. Based on the findings, Phase 2 developed ACES – a novel online intervention for the reduction of perceived stress and emotional eating in Maltese adolescents – and assessed its feasibility. In Phase 1, cross-sectional data were gathered from 79 Maltese adolescents using an online questionnaire with 6 self-report measures examining perceived stress, coping responses, eating behaviours, self-efficacy, physical exercise and social support. Findings suggested that emotional eating behaviours can be decreased by reducing perceived stress and dysfunctional coping strategies (self-controlling and escape-avoidance) and increasing self-efficacy and functional coping strategies (seeking social support and planful problem solving). In Phase 2, ACES was developed and a feasibility study, with a one-group pretest-posttest design, carried out to assess the functionality, usability, perceived utility and acceptability of ACES and to test the design of a definitive randomized controlled trial. Forty-six out of 125 participants completed ACES. Findings suggested that ACES is feasible and well-received by participants. Preliminary effectiveness results provide additional support for the Phase 1 findings concerning the variables that need to be taken into account to decrease emotional eating behaviours. This study has made significant contributions to the literature and offered insights into specific functional and dysfunctional coping strategies impacting perceived stress and eating behaviours. It has produced an online intervention, which is a feasible avenue for the reduction of perceived stress and emotional eating, that could be built upon by practitioners and researchers, with potential implications for obesity prevention.

Young people are arguably facing complex life situations in their transition into adulthood and navigating their life trajectories in a highly individualised way. For youth in post-compulsory education, their training years have been extended, their years of dependency have increased and they have greater individual choice compared to previous youth generations. This study develops an understanding of the process of individualisation applied to youth in late modernity and explores it in relation to the neo-liberal climate. It compares the life situation of this youth generation with youth in the early 1960s, brought up with more predefined traditional conditions, cemented in traditional social structures. The processes that led to generational changes in the experiences of youth in the last forty-five years are examined, linked to structural transformations that influence subjective experiences. Specifically, the shifts of the conditions of youth in post-compulsory education are studied in relations to socio-economic, technological and cultural changes. This study discusses the Western Anglo-American model of changes in youths life experiences and examines how it (mis)fits in a more conservative Catholic Mediterranean setting. The research investigates conditions in Malta, an ex-colonial small island Mediterranean state, whose peculiarities include its delayed economic development compared to the Western setting. The core of the research comprises of primary data collection using in-depth, ethnographical interviews, with two generations of youth in different socio-historical context; those who experienced their youth in the early 1960s and youth in the late 2000s. This study concludes that the concept of individualisation does indeed illuminate the experiences of youth in late modernity especially when compared to the experiences of youth forty-five years ago. However the concept of individualisation is applied in a glocalised manner in line with the peculiarities of Malta that has lagged behind mainstream developments in Western Europe and still retained traditional features. Building on the individualisation concept, I use an empirically grounded concept of compromised choices to describe the increase in the bargaining of choice happening at different fronts in the life experiences of youth, especially in the life biography of women, choices in education and the job market and choices in consumption.

The treatment of irregular migrants in Malta is problematic from a human rights perspective, for it contravenes the principle of universalism that is intrinsic to human rights philosophy. This study investigates this treatment. Crucially, it identifies four elements of political practice in the absence of which it is contended a human rights culture cannot flourish, as well as underlying patterns in Maltese political culture which contravene these four elements. Its ultimate aim is to propose meaningful, effective and long-lasting human-rights-compliant solutions to the treatment of irregular immigrants in Malta. Based on a reading of foundational documents of the modern human rights movement, especially the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thesis posits that human rights should be ‘located' between the political and the cultural. The four basic principles of human rights identified as framing the optimal political conditions for the nurturing of a human rights culture are related to dignity, a cosmopolitan orientation, democratic practice and a commitment to equality. This concept of a human rights culture is innovatively used as an analytical tool for examining Maltese responses to irregular migration. This is done in a two-way manner, with the examination of practice enriching the identified theoretical framework, and the theoretical framework then guiding the search for possible new human-rights-consistent policy directions which Malta could take. Drawing on a range of ethnographic methods, including in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study brings to light the difficulties of putting into practice human rights principles within an already established local culture grappling with its own ghosts like occupations and colonial experiences. Although resistance to change is often difficult to identify since it is shrouded in ‘modern' language, hidden under security arguments or bureaucratic explanations. Interviews and a range of documents illustrate the multi-layered misconceptions, stereotypes and fear that play out among the Maltese.

<p>We have studied the tourism industry for three years, and we were interested in finding a different subject to conclude our studies. Language Tourism, a fairly small but upcoming niche in tourism, and one in which we have some experience, promised to be an interesting dissertation subject. In Europe there are three countries where English is a mother tongue – the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta. The dissertation focuses on Malta.</p><p>Malta is a small island state in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily. The island state has three islands, Malta, Gozo and Comino, and together they enjoy a huge number of tourists, particularly in the summer months when the warm climate makes a good sun and sea destination. The summer season is officially June to August, so there is a problem concerning what to do when the last tourist leaves the island after their summer holiday. The tourism industry has a huge impact on the country and sustains around 30 per cent of the country´s total GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Malta has been promoted for a long time as a sea-side destination, and the Maltese Government Tourist Board traditionally promoted the island for sun, sea and sand, and popular culture.</p><p>Back in the 1980s Malta had an established reputation. The Maltese Government now wanted to attract a different type of tourist, the ‘quality tourist’. The type of tourist they wanted to attract would also visit the island during the shoulder months. They were talking about the cultural tourist.</p><p>The importance of good cooperation between the language schools and the Malta Tourism Authority is a high priority if the development of steady all-year-round tourism is to be a possibility. Being an island state Malta is likely to suffer more from the issue of seasonality, as islands in general tend to be affected more than inland and coastal destinations. However, Malta's climate is a major pulling factor.</p><p>Language tourism has grown on the island since the 1960´s; today there are between 40 and 50 schools registered on the island. There are three important factors contributing to a language trip: courses, teachers and the leisure programme. Even though Malta is facing competition from nearby destinations in the Mediterranean, it is on its own in this niche market and able to offer students a warm, friendly welcome with a combination of a unique experience and learning.</p>

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We have studied the tourism industry for three years, and we were interested in finding a different subject to conclude our studies. Language Tourism, a fairly small but upcoming niche in tourism, and one in which we have some experience, promised to be an interesting dissertation subject. In Europe there are three countries where English is a mother tongue – the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta. The dissertation focuses on Malta. Malta is a small island state in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily. The island state has three islands, Malta, Gozo and Comino, and together they enjoy a huge number of tourists, particularly in the summer months when the warm climate makes a good sun and sea destination. The summer season is officially June to August, so there is a problem concerning what to do when the last tourist leaves the island after their summer holiday. The tourism industry has a huge impact on the country and sustains around 30 per cent of the country´s total GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Malta has been promoted for a long time as a sea-side destination, and the Maltese Government Tourist Board traditionally promoted the island for sun, sea and sand, and popular culture. Back in the 1980s Malta had an established reputation. The Maltese Government now wanted to attract a different type of tourist, the ‘quality tourist’. The type of tourist they wanted to attract would also visit the island during the shoulder months. They were talking about the cultural tourist. The importance of good cooperation between the language schools and the Malta Tourism Authority is a high priority if the development of steady all-year-round tourism is to be a possibility. Being an island state Malta is likely to suffer more from the issue of seasonality, as islands in general tend to be affected more than inland and coastal destinations. However, Malta's climate is a major pulling factor. Language tourism has grown on the island since the 1960´s; today there are between 40 and 50 schools registered on the island. There are three important factors contributing to a language trip: courses, teachers and the leisure programme. Even though Malta is facing competition from nearby destinations in the Mediterranean, it is on its own in this niche market and able to offer students a warm, friendly welcome with a combination of a unique experience and learning.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2002. / Advisor: Dr. Jack Freiberg, Florida State University, School of Visual Arts and Dance, Dept. of Art History. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 7, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Sydney, 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed March 10, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy to the Medieval Studies programme. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is a multi-sited ethnography of sub-Saharan migrants' journeys through Libya and by boat to Malta. Its overall aim is to understand how undocumented migrants make and conceptualise their complex journeys through shifting regulatory landscapes. The thesis draws upon, and consequently develops, understandings of migrants' mobilities, both within anthropology and wider migration studies. Over the course of their journey through Libya and Malta, sub-Saharan migrants move across uneven topographies in place and time, from the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert to the turbulent Mediterranean Sea, from situations of detention to everyday houses in society, from the hands of smugglers to the arms of the law. To this end, the thesis is guided by three wider objectives. First, investigating how different forms of mobility are part of migrants' journeys. Second, examining how migrants navigate such journeys. And third, understanding the ways in which migrants encounter and negotiate borders en route. These objectives are engaged with through a multi-sited ethnography tracing migrants' journeys through five contexts: sites of confinement and detention in Libya, everyday spaces of Libyan society, the boat crossing, and finally the legal framework in Malta. These varying contexts prompt comparisons across particular sites, processes and practices on a journey, highlighting elements that might be generalized and those that are specific. The ethnography is presented in five chapters, their sequence mirroring the overall journey of migrants through Libya and Malta. Unpacking the journey and mobility, this thesis develops a set of interrelated arguments. First, it deconstructs the notion of migrants as a homogenized group of people on a linear trajectory aimed at Europe. It goes beyond typologized understandings of migrants, such as legal, illegal, refugee or asylum seeker, that fix migrants into static categories linked to the state or specific crisis situations. Second, it front-stages the journey as a focal point of inquiry, thereby addressing a theme under-acknowledged in the anthropology of mobility and migration. This enables a move beyond state-centric and isolated understandings of migrants' mobilities to one that accounts for the multiplicity of journeys and processes en route. Third, this emphasis on the journey highlights the importance of thinking through relations involving multiple actors and bordering encounters. Taken together, these arguments advance important insights into the anthropologies of mobility and migration. The thesis makes wider contributions by conceptualizing an 'architecture' of the journey, constituted by three inter-related components: mobility, navigation, and borders. They offer a more nuanced understanding of migration and mobility in (post-)conflict settings, one that not only has implications for understanding sub-Saharan migrants' journeys through Libya and by boat to Europe, but one also relevant to other crisis contexts as well.

This diploma paper focuses on progress of the pharish in Horažďovice in years 1251 {--} 1850. It was the incorporate pharish of the Sovereign Order of Malta, to wich was not given the research interest before now. This thesis tries to discover the chronologic progress and changes of the parish in the watched period, based primarily on the resources of archives. Further tries to see into the situation of incorporated pharish in terms of dioceses and archidioceses. The work is divided into nine chapters. After the introduction with definition the theme theme of the research and evaluation the used sources succeeds a short chapter about the Order, its history and hierarchy abroad also in the czech province. Following four chapters (forming the main part of the thesis) inscribe the six-hundred long progress of the pharish in Horažďovice. The next part is devoted to the parsons, the parish church St. Peter and Paul and its asset. The ninth chapter dissertates about the situation of the monastic incorporated pharish in the arcidiocese of Prague and the diocese of České Budějovice. This situation is illustrated on example of the Maltese pharish in Horažďovice. The keynotes of the archival research summarizes the conclusion, wich is followed by a list of the abbreviations used, sources and the literature and the annexes.