Therapeutic alliance is a robust predictor of future therapeutic outcomes. While treatment of normal children and adolescents is often hard, treating antisocial youth is especially difficult because of the social, cognitive, and emotional deficits experienced by these youth. This study investigated whether differing levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits influenced the formation of therapeutic alliance in a sample of 51 adjudicated youth in juvenile institutions. Also, we tested whether therapeutic alliance influenced success in the institution and whether this association differed based on levels of CU traits. Results revealed that CU traits and selfreported delinquency were both modestly related to institutional infractions. Children low on both dimensions showed the lowest levels of institutional infractions. Additionally, these findings suggest that children high on both CU traits and delinquency reported better therapeutic alliance, but that youth with high CU traits committed more institutional infractions, despite their level of therapeutic alliance.

Thesis advisor: Hideo Konishi / This dissertation covers three essays in modelling the market competitions with the presence of consumer search. The first two essays add on Wolinsky's (1986) model to investigate firms' optimal choice of their way of doing business in response to the changing consumer search behaviors during the information age. The third essay modifies the Varian's (1980) model to provide a new mechanism to rationalize the countercyclical markups in supermarkets. The first essay concerns the formation of referral alliance. It extends the Wolinsky's (1986) model to a three-stage game with two types of products produced by a continuum of firms with each one having strength in a single type only. In the first stage, firms simultaneously decide on the formation of referral alliances, in which each alliance consists of a pair of firms producing different types of products. In the second stage, they set price simultaneously. In the third stage, each consumer who only values one type of product searches sequentially for the right product. We show that firms with low ability to deal with the unmatched consumers are positively assorted together in the formation of referral alliance with multiple equilibrium possible. The proliferation of referral alliance always benefits consumers but not necessarily firms. One the one hand, it intensifies competition and drives down the market price. On the other hand, it increases the mass of consumers participating in the search market. The price elasticity of demand together with our stability condition govern the changes in consumer and social welfare as the search cost varies. The reduction in search cost always increases consumer and social welfare only if the equilibrium is stable with elastic demand. The policy implication from our results is that it might be more effective to improve consumer and social welfare by inducing more firms to participate in the referral alliances rather than reducing the consumers' search cost. The second essay studies the incentives for stores to invest effort in serving customers if effort is costly and might be merely persuasive that reduces consumption utility. We incorporate a sales agent to each store in Wolinsky's (1986) model, in which the sales agent is paid either by fixed wage or by commissions. The commissions motivate sales agents to provide more advice, which could be indeed useful to increase clients' willingness to pay or merely persuasive without affecting it. Consumers are sophisticated that understand the dual roles of effort before visiting firms, but they might be impressionable and therefore could not stay away from the effect of persuasion when they are making the purchasing decision. When consumers are heterogeneous in terms of their impressionability, they are sorted into stores with fixed wage and commissions in the equilibrium. The composition of stores varies with the search cost and the ability of sales agents to increase consumers' willingness to pay (effectiveness of advice). When the advice is relatively ineffective, there will be an increase in mass of fixed wage stores in response to a reduction in search cost. The reverse is true when the advice is sufficiently effective. Additionally, the mass of fixed wage stores always increases as the advice becomes less effective. The competitive equilibrium outcome might imply that there are too little commission-based stores, so it could be social welfare enhancing by encouraging more consumers to visit the stores with commissions. The third essay provides a simple mechanism that rationalizes the countercyclical markups in supermarkets with the presence of a warehouse club. We first provide a mechanism on the higher supermarket prices upon the entry of the warehouse club. The new warehouse club attracts price-sensitive consumers away from supermarkets, which reduces the price elasticity of the consumers in the supermarket regime. This relaxes price competition resulting in higher supermarket prices. After that we apply the same mechanism to explain the countercyclical markups in supermarkets. During economic booms, the time value of consumers increases making them less willing to visit the warehouse club. Thus, economic booms increase the amount of price-sensitive consumers in supermarkets, intensifying price competition and inducing a lower price relative to cost in booming times. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Robert S. Ross / Traditional theories of foreign policy that focus on external threats, domestic politics, and ideology explain why a great power exerts pressures or seeks compromises with one weaker neighbor, but they do not adequately address the fact that a great power usually deals with several weaker powers in a region. This dissertation explores new and important questions: Why does a great power sometimes treat multiple weaker neighbors in generally the same way, but sometimes attempts to differentiate among weaker neighbors through selective concessions or targeted coercion? In other words, why does a great power adopt uniform strategies or selective strategies? The dissertation introduces a Regional Competitor Approach, arguing that the number of regional competitors and their respective alignment relationships determine whether a great power deals with weaker powers under a sweeping general strategy or adopts distinctive policies toward them. If there is one regional competitor, a great power adopts uniform strategies towards weaker non-allies to convey a consistent message to the competitor, but selective strategies towards weaker allies to solve collective action problems. If the number of regional competitors increases , a great power adopts selective strategies towards weaker non-allies to maintain its power advantages vis-à-vis the weaker powers, but uniform strategies towards weaker allies to solve commitment problems. The dissertation elaborates new concepts, develops a new approach against competing theories, and challenges existing historical accounts based upon newly available evidence. The dissertation examines four cases: (a) China’s East Asia policy, 1955-1965; (b) China’s South Asia policy, 1955-1963; (c) China’s Indochina policy, 1962-1975; and (d) French, German, and Russian strategies toward Eastern Europe, 1919-1941. In the first three cases, I seek to explain how the United States and the Soviet Union shaped China’s asymmetric statecraft in Cold War Asia. The final case allows me to compare and contrast the approaches of China and European great powers. The above case studies draw upon a wealth of evidence from American, Chinese, German and Russian archives. Unpublished archives include the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archive, provincial or municipal archives in China, Nixon and Ford Presidential Libraries, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Archives, and libraries in China and North America. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

This thesis deals with Britain's attitude towards European security under the Callaghan government from 1976 to 1979. That period saw Cold War tensions grow and détente lose its momentum as Britain struggled with economic weakness while trying to maintain its international influence. Concentrating on Cold War Europe, this thesis asks two questions: what policy did the Callaghan government adopt towards European security, and what role did Britain play in the Atlantic Alliance? It draws three conclusions. First, under Callaghan, Britain sought to maintain a traditionally influential role in Europe. To achieve that goal, it attempted to sustain a major military contribution to NATO and to foster good US-UK relations. Nevertheless, this policy was complicated by acute economic crisis and defence expenditure cuts. Britain's credibility in the Alliance was seriously diminished and policymakers had to offset reductions in British hardware contributions with diplomatic contributions. Secondly, Britain's role as a mediator in the Alliance contributed to its stability during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Carter's inconsistent foreign policy and lack of consultation with allies caused confusion and tensions soon after his inauguration. This gave the British room to work for the maintenance of Alliance unity and, as a result, the US-UK special relationship was strengthened. Thirdly, regardless of Britain's response to its economic trails, and its collaboration with the US, Callaghan's preference for status quo, and his lack of strategy towards European security other than the maintenance of the stability of the Alliance under American leadership, hampered Britain's attempts to retain influence. As Britain's power waned, West Germany's rose as German leaders gained status in the defence policy making process of the Alliance by arguing for a new response to the changing East-West military balance and the decline of détente.

The Clinical Support Tools (CST) was developed to help therapists organize and target potential problems that might account for negative outcomes in psychotherapy. The core of CST feedback is The Assessment for Signal Clients (ASC). The purpose of this study was to describe and identify patterns of problems that typically characterize off-track cases. A cluster analysis of 107 off-track clients revealed three client types: those whose problems were characterized by alliance and motivational difficulties; those characterized by social support and life event difficulties; and those whose problems had an indistinguishable pattern. Loglinear modeling showed that if patients had less therapeutic alliance problems they were also less likely to have motivational problems. Findings were also consistent with the cluster analysis, which showed that a relatively higher percentage of not-on-track participants received signal alerts for the social support items and scale. Individuals whose progress goes off-track appear to have their greatest difficulty with social support, losses, and therapy task agreement.

The purpose of this research is to explore differences in the therapeutic alliance for High-Conflict Co-Parents (HCC) vs. Regular Couples. Therapeutic alliance refers to the relationship, consisting of a bond, and agreement on the tasks and goals of therapy, between at least two people in the therapeutic relationship. It was hypothesized that HCC clients would have lower therapeutic alliance scores compared to regular couple clients. The results supported this hypothesis. By identifying these differences, more research can be conducted to improve our understanding of how to strengthen the therapeutic alliance with HCC clients, leading to improved treatment of this population.

Researchers have written extensively on many facets of supervision in the counseling profession, including the supervisee benefits associated with a strong supervisory working alliance. While the majority of studies have focused on the working alliance in academic settings with student trainees, there has been a lack of research exploring the role of the supervisory working alliance in workplace settings, where supervision can be different from supervision offered in a university clinic or counseling center. Employee job dissatisfaction has been a problem identified within the mental health workforce. Researchers have identified effective supervision as a mediating factor. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the theoretical construct of the supervisory working alliance and job satisfaction. This multiple regression study included 250 workers who were providing direct services to persons with severe mental illness or severe emotional and behavioral disorders. Results yielded a significant relationship between the supervisees' perception of the supervisory working alliance, as measured by the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory, and job satisfaction, as measured by the Job Satisfaction Survey. Specifically, participants who rated the supervisory working alliance higher were also more likely to report higher levels of job satisfaction. The implications for social change include knowledge useful for educators, trainers, supervisors, and supervisees seeking to promote positive outcomes of workers and clients in community mental health settings. Low job satisfaction leads to generally poorer client outcomes. The ability to understand the supervisory working alliance's influence on job satisfaction is beneficial to advancing the treatment for persons with chronic mental illness.

The Alliance+ project is a teacher professional development program that integrates technology into mathematics and science lessons. The effectiveness of this innovative program was evaluated in terms of students‟ perceptions of the classroom learning environment and their attitudes towards science/mathematics. The sample consisted of 759 students of seven mathematics/science teachers (four Alliance+ participants and three non-participants) in one middle school in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The students responded to learning environment scales based on the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) and the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaires to assess their perceptions of the classroom learning environment. Additionally, they responded to an attitude scale modeled on the Test Of Science-Related Attitudes (TOSRA) to assess their attitudes towards mathematics/science. It was found that Alliance+ teachers were more successful than the non-Alliance+ teachers in promoting a classroom environment with more cooperation among students during the science/mathematics lessons. Additionally, Alliance+ professional development model was differentially effective for mathematics and science teachers in terms of three learning environment scales (namely, Teacher Support, Cooperation, and Critical Voice), but not in terms of students‟ attitudes to science. In terms of Cooperation, Alliance+ teachers were more effective than non-Alliance+ teachers for mathematics, but comparable in effectiveness to non-Alliance+ teachers for science. For Critical Voice, Alliance+ teachers were slightly more effective than non-Alliance+ teachers for mathematics, but considerably less effective than non-Alliance+ teachers for science. / In terms of Teacher Support, Alliance+ were less effective than non-Alliance+ teachers for science, but comparable in effectiveness to non-Alliance+ teachers for mathematics. However, teachers who did not participate in the Alliance+ project were more effective than the teachers who participated in the Alliance+ project in providing a positive learning environment in which the students perceived more teacher support and in promoting positive attitudes towards science/mathematics. Qualitative data results revealed that the Alliance+ teachers had not received sufficient support from their school administrators and Alliance+ trainers and lacked the resources that were necessary for them to implement the project successfully, which could possibly be an explanation for the quantitative results in favor of the non-Alliance+ teachers. This study also investigated outcome-environment associations. It was found that associations existed between students‟ attitudes towards science/mathematics and their perceptions of the classroom leaning environment (especially personal relevance, teacher support, and cooperation).

Worldwide, governments and representatives of the community sector believe that the adoption of ICT by community-sector organisations is important because it contributes to the achievement of mission, strategic and business objectives, and benefits the communities those organisations serve. However, despite the fact that many organisations have developed innovative ICT applications, most experience problems in taking up ICT (Burt & Taylor 1999, Surman 2001, DCITA 2005b). This thesis explores the conditions for success and barriers to the take-up and effective use of information and communications technology (ICT), specifically websites and online services, by community-based non-profit organisations, using a study of seventeen organisations based in rural and regional Victoria in Australia, and Tuscany in Italy. In particular, it examines the structural barriers and the inter-organisational relationships that act to facilitate the take-up, or otherwise, of technology by community sector non-profit organisations. The study adopts a grounded theory approach, based on a two-stage data analysis: using the LIAISE framework for the take-up of ICT (Schauder et al. 2005), to identify the factors or conditions that contribute to the development of effective, sustainable websites; and social network analysis to explore the extent to which organisational networks enable the achievement of those conditions. The broad aims of this approach are to enable the evaluation of the existing LIAISE framework and to develop it as a more dynamic systems model capable of serving as a guide to policy and action. The study finds that although the LIAISE framework provides a good taxonomy of the factors important to the take-up of ICT by community-based non-profit organisations, it has weaknesses in that it does not explicitly identify user literacy as a factor, nor does it sufficiently emphasise the importance of an organisation’s external relationships, which provide an essential means of accessing required information and resources such as technical skills, and of enhancing core internal skills such as the ability to develop strategic plans. A new model is proposed to address these weaknesses: ALLIANCE (Applications; Literacy; user Literacy; Infrastructure; Access; Networks; Computing support; and Evaluation).

Abstract Substance misuse is a global phenomenon. However, little is known about substance misuse issues in Islamic nations or about the provision of preventative and rehabilitative services in such nations. This thesis explores the legal context of such services in the Maldives and pays particular attention to tensions between the formal policies of the National Narcotics Control Bureau and clinical practice. Findings are drawn from a review of government and service policy documents, five semi-structured individual interviews with clinical practitioners and senior administrative staff from rehabilitative services, and a three day focus group workshop with clinical staff. Findings show the lack of awareness of the legal and policy contexts for service provision and the ways in which existing policy frameworks often detract from the forging of therapeutic alliances. The primary concern raised by the analysis is the lack of involvement of clinical staff in policy formation and revision. This contributes to series of tensions and contradictions between official aims for services and the actual provision of these services. Further a range of ethical issues arose as a result of inadequate professional monitoring, training, and peer review. Recommendations are made regarding how these issues should be addressed in order to enhance the Maldivian response to increasing substance misuse.