The purpose of the paper is to understand the employment policies related to people with disabilities in Kosovo. Two main methods are used in the paper, first, the method of analysing statistical and ...administrative data on the situation of persons with disabilities in the labour market, and analysing budget expenditures for disability schemes in Kosovo, and, second, the method of analysing institutional strategies, action plans, and primary and secondary legislation governing the employment of persons with disabilities. The main conclusions of the paper are: (i) Kosovo does not have official statistics regarding the number of persons with disabilities in general, and their situation in the labour market; (ii) expenditure from Kosovo's budget for financing disability schemes has steadily increased in the last three years; (iii) Kosovo has prepared and adopted an advanced legal framework that promotes vocational training, vocational retraining and employment of people with disabilities; iv) Kosovo does not have a strategic document (strategy or action plan) that defines the vision and long-term goal of increasing the employment of persons with disabilities.
Contestations on a norm sometimes weaken the consensus on the norm, while other times strengthen it. The literature demonstrates that legal norms are more resilient in the face of contestations. This ...study argues that regardless of the norm’s legal nature, the use of legal language and argumentation in the contestation processes increases the norm’s resilience by facilitating a renewed agreement on the norm’s validity. The evolution of the human protection norm, which regulates the international use of force for humanitarian purposes, is examined through comparative discourse analysis of two contestation periods in Kosovo (1998–1999) and Libya (2011–2013) interventions. While the legal nature of contestations after the Kosovo crisis revealed the inadequacies of the humanitarian intervention framework and led to the development of a stronger consensus under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), non-legal contestations following the Libya crisis did not yield constructive outcomes and ended with practical disappearance of R2P as a basis of military intervention. The article concludes that the concept of process legality has explanatory power for enlightening the contradicting consequences of norm contestations, as well as a potential for guiding the methods of norm proponents.
This study focuses on the effect of road slope on driving cycle parameters of urban driving. A driving cycle (DC) is a series of data points that capture a vehicle’s speed versus time and is a ...crucial factor for evaluating vehicular emission. In this study, vehicles were driven on Prishtina’s urban roads with different slopes. The driving cycles for each grade class were developed using approximately 40,000 s of real-time speed data. Micro-trips were extracted using a Python-based clustering algorithm. The results indicate that the acceleration and deceleration decreased as the negative slope decreased. Drivers tended to use sharper acceleration and deceleration on uphill and downhill roads, while the lowest values of kinematic parameter values were obtained for roads with grades ranging from −2 to 2; therefore, cities with road slope values beyond this range should consider sloped roads during the development of driving cycle. Furthermore, research on CO, HC and NOx emissions related to slopes shows that for the emissions, they are more sensitive to increase from flat to uphill with respect to increasing in downhill to flat sections.
This article argues that there is much confusion surrounding Serbia's landmark decision to engage in a process of normalization with Kosovo. Rather than undergoing a process of Europeanization, ...whereby a fundamental transformation in the underlying rationale and processes of decision‐making occurred, as some have argued, the changes in Serbia's policy are in fact based on material concerns. By tracing relations in the EU‐Serbia‐Kosovo triangle, the article shows that change in Serbia's approach towards Kosovo is based on pragmatism and political opportunism, rather than absorption, adaptation, convergence or identity formation. What we have witnessed is a more short‐term, interest based policy shift serving very specific economic purposes. In conceptual terms, this is better understood as a policy of rationally instrumental ‘pre‐Accession Europeanization’ rather than as a process of adaptive normative Europeanization as more conventionally understood in the literature.
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease characterized by episodes of airway narrowing leading to manifestations of symptoms such as wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, ...that may resolve spontaneously or following treatment.
The aim of this paper was to present the collected data related to the prevalence of self-reported respiratory symptoms, asthma, and use of asthma medication among school children aged 13-14 years from the city of Gjilan, a municipality located in southeast Kosovo.
This was a cross-sectional study realized during the year 2018 as a part of the Project of Global Asthma Network (GAN) Phase I. The study elaborated randomly selected sample of 1200 school children from the city of Gjilan, in the southeast of Kosovo. The mean age was 13.4±0.51 with median IQR=13 (13-14). About 618 (51.5%) were male and 582 (48.5%) were female with the relation between the genders of 1:1.1. The percentage difference between the genders was not statistically significant (Difference test: Difference 3% (-0.99-6.99) CI 95%; Chi-square=2.159; df=1 p=0.1417). The prevalence of wheezing/ whistling in the chest EVER and the last 12 months was 12.7% vs. 6.4% respectively with no significant association between gender and symptoms (p>0.05) (Table 1). About 1132 (94.3%) had no attacks of wheezing in the last 12 MONTHS, 59 (4.9%) had 1-3 attacks, 7 (0.6%) had 4-12 attacks and 2 (0.2%) had>12 attacks. The analysis did not indicate a significant association between gender and the frequency of wheezing attacks (none / 1-3 / ≥ 4) for Pearson Chi-square: 2.5501; df=2; p=0.2801.
This study has found moderately low asthma prevalence among adolescents in the southeast region of Kosovo, with no significant association between genders. Although, should be considered as an urgent need the proper examination, because asthma seems to be under-diagnosed and also untreated. It's possible that doctors in our country hesitate to diagnose asthma or the parents themselves and the children deny it.
The article analyzes the process of normalizing relations between Belgrade and Pristina after adopting the Agreement on the Path to Normalization. The analytical framework of neorealism was used to ...explain that the normalization process was accelerated due to the war crisis in Eastern Europe. The international legal aspects of the agreement were scrutinized, based on the method of content analysis and comparative studies, to argue that the agreement is a legally binding treaty between two sides that respect each other’s international legal personality. The authors concluded that the European Union and the United States attempted to create new momentum in the decade-long and rather unsuccessful process by adopting the Agreement and the Annex on implementation. Thus, these documents were put in the context of relations between Belgrade and Pristina and broader European and regional levels of complex relations. In addition, the analysis concluded that the documents serve as new impulses in normalization as a continuous legal formalization of relations between the two sides based on international legal rules.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of returnee entrepreneurs’ education and knowledge transfer (KT) on business development (BD) as well as the moderating effect of time ...living abroad on returnee entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach The quantitative approach was used in this study to grasp and validate the conceptual framework. This research was guided by a positivist survey research technique. A structured questionnaire was used as a data collection tool, and 151 returnee entrepreneurs were involved in the study. SEM with SmartPLS was used as a data analysis tool. Findings The results of this study show that returnee entrepreneur’s education and KT is positively associated with BD, while the time living abroad was not proved to have a moderation effect on BD. Practical implications This study has academic and practical relevance, as it adds new knowledge and a better understanding of the role of returnee entrepreneurs in BD and expands research on returnee entrepreneurs. In terms of practical contributions, this research offers suggestions to governments, policymakers and the business community about the impact of returnee entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial ecosystems of their home countries. Originality/value This study is one of the few studies that have analysed the impact of returnee entrepreneurs’ education and KT on BD by using the survey technique. The results of this empirical research are based on primary data collected via a questionnaire.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures brought for prevention of infections are associated with considerable psychosocial and psychological morbidity in the general population. Providing continuous ...mental health services during the pandemics is a challenge worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper reports on the strategies and activities taken to protect public mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kosovo. This included establishing online and phone psychological first aid services and developing psychoeducational videos and webinars. The paper concludes with several lessons learned during the process of establishing and maintaining these interventions, such as: initial political endorsement is crucial to gain and maintain the momentum of services; continuous training of volunteers is crucial for both addressing the needs/problems, which arise during the process of work and maintain the motivation of volunteers; promotion of the services is crucial; academic curricula training mental health professionals should include digital mental health related courses and manualization on how to establish this kind of services in midst of crisis is crucial in order to ensure quick operationalization when needed again especially in LMIC settings. The interventions developed provide opportunity for further research especially by evaluating the impact of the services and exploring how online and provision of mental health and psychoeducation services online could help to cover services gap in times of isolation, limited movement and situations similar to pandemics in settings with limited mental health services and resources. The situation with pandemics with COVID 19 is still far from ending. Future waves of infections and restriction could again spike the mental health and psychosocial and psychological strain of the general population, therefore being prepared in provisions of psychological first aid and other mental health services online is crucial.
Abstract
The main aim of this paper is to analyze the electronic banking services in Kosovo’s banking net profit during the period 2013 - 2017. The paper discusses the role that these services have ...played in the development of the banking industry, modernization of e-commerce, and economic growth. These services provide higher security, faster and easier access by reducing transaction costs, access to more distant markets, and access to many products and services. The main paper results have shown that E-banking services have the highest positive impact in banking net profit, while automated teller machine services have shown a slight positive impact. The highest positive correlation results have been seen in point-of-sale services, whereas automated teller machine services showed a negative correlation in banking net profit in Kosovo during the research period. The constant increase of demand for these services has enabled banks to increase their profits in the banking market of Kosovo. Therefore, the paper finds that commercial banks in Kosovo should increase their focus on the advancement and development of electronic banking services (particularly, E-Banking services which are very practical and can be easily used anywhere and anytime).
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