Assessment and detection of peer-bullying through analysis of the group context

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Influence of social motivation, self-perception of social efficacy and normative adjustment in the peer setting

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Parental and peer support on physical activity among portuguese children and adolescents

Objetivo: A presente dissertação de mestrado teve como principal objetivo estudar a associação entre o suporte parental e dos pares na atividade física das crianças e adolescentes dos 10 aos 17 anos de idade. Método: Foi efetuada uma revisão sistemática de literatura (RSL) onde se sumarizou o estado da arte sobre a temática. Posteriormente foi realizado um estudo observacional transversal onde se investigou como o suporte dos pais (tangível e intangível) e dos pares estão associados com a atividade física entre crianças e adolescentes, examinando as diferenças entre géneros e a sua variação com a idade. Participaram no estudo 1876 crianças e adolescentes, de ambos os sexos, entre os 10 aos 17 anos de idade, participantes do projeto PESSOA. Resultados: Os resultados do estudo transversal corroboram os resultados de alguns estudos da revisão sistemática de literatura uma vez que, apesar das diferenças metodológicas entre os estudos, foram encontradas correlações significativas entre o suporte parental e o nível de atividade física das crianças e adolescentes. Há diferenças entre géneros no tipo de suporte parental e no suporte dos pares. O estudo transversal demonstrou uma associação positiva entre o suporte dos pares e a idade. Esta associação destaca-se na transição da infância para a adolescência. Em ambos os géneros, o suporte dos pares registou uma maior associação à atividade física do que o suporte dos pais. Conclusões: A realização deste estudo demonstra que os pais e os pares são fatores chave na atividade física das crianças e adolescentes. Em diferentes fases da infância e da adolescência, o papel de cada um deles altera-se de acordo com vários fatores do envolvimento físico e social. É necessário mais investigação nesta área, preferencialmente estudos longitudinais que permitam uma melhor compreensão de como as diferentes fontes (pais e pares) e os diferentes tipos de suporte (tangível e intangível) evoluem ao longo da infância e da adolescência e qual o seu impacto nos diferentes níveis de atividade física.

Moving the EU from a Laggard to a Leader in Democracy Assistance: The Potential Role of the European Endowment for Democracy. CEPS Policy Brief No. 273, 15 June 2012

In their assessment of the proposed European Endowment for Democracy (EED), Hrant Kostanyan and Magdalena Nasieniak conclude that an instrument along the lines currently envisaged could and should take on the challenge to make the EU a truly committed, pro-active and effective leader of democracy assistance. A flexible and fast-track path of assessing needs and granting funds could become the most visible results of the EU’s assistance in this area, delivering almost immediate tangible results. They argue that the EED therefore needs to become an instrument free of nationally-driven decisions, European ‘turf wars’ and cumbersome bureaucracy.

The effects of maternal depression and parental conflict on children's peer play

Background Little is known about the relative effects of exposure to postnatal depression and parental conflict on the social functioning of school-aged children. This is, in part, because of a lack of specificity in the measurement of child and parental behaviour and a reliance on children's reports of their hypothetical responses to conflict in play. Methods In the course of a prospective longitudinal study of children of postnatally depressed and well women, 5-year-old children were videotaped at home with a friend in a naturalistic dressing-up play setting. As well as examining possible associations between the occurrence of postnatal depression and the quality of the children's interactions, we investigated the influence of parental conflict and co-operation, and the continuity of maternal depression. The quality of the current mother-child relationship was considered as a possible mediating factor. Results Exposure to postnatal depression was associated with increased likelihood, among boys, of displaying physical aggression in play with their friend. However, parental conflict mediated the effects of postnatal depression on active aggression during play, and was also associated with displays of autonomy and intense conflict. While there were no gender effects in terms of the degree or intensity of aggressive behaviours, girls were more likely to express aggression verbally using denigration and gloating whereas boys were more likely to display physical aggression via interpersonal and object struggles. Conclusions The study provided evidence for the specificity of effects, with strong links between parental and child peer conflict. These effects appear to arise from direct exposure to parental conflict, rather than indirectly, through mother-child interactions.

Supporting ad hoc collaborations in peer-to-peer networks

Traditionally, applications and tools supporting collaborative computing have been designed only with personal computers in mind and support a limited range of computing and network platforms. These applications are therefore not well equipped to deal with network heterogeneity and, in particular, do not cope well with dynamic network topologies. Progress in this area must be made if we are to fulfil the needs of users and support the diversity, mobility, and portability that are likely to characterise group work in future. This paper describes a groupware platform called Coco that is designed to support collaboration in a heterogeneous network environment. The work demonstrates that progress in the p development of a generic supporting groupware is achievable, even in the context of heterogeneous and dynamic networks. The work demonstrates the progress made in the development of an underlying communications infrastructure, building on peer-to-peer concept and topologies to improve scalability and robustness.

A peer-to-peer approach to content dissemination and search in collaborative networks

There are three key driving forces behind the development of Internet Content Management Systems (CMS) - a desire to manage the explosion of content, a desire to provide structure and meaning to content in order to make it accessible, and a desire to work collaboratively to manipulate content in some meaningful way. Yet the traditional CMS has been unable to meet the latter of these requirements, often failing to provide sufficient tools for collaboration in a distributed context. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems are networks in which every node is an equal participant (whether transmitting data, exchanging content, or invoking services) and there is an absence of any centralised administrative or coordinating authorities. P2P systems are inherently more scalable than equivalent client-server implementations as they tend to use resources at the edge of the network much more effectively. This paper details the rationale and design of a P2P middleware for collaborative content management.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Peer group similarities in adolescent hostile attribution tendencies

A bias towards attributing hostile intent to others has been linked to aggression. In an adolescent sample, we investigated whether peer group homophily exists in the tendency towards attributing hostile intent. We assessed hostile attribution tendencies and self-reported aggressive behaviours in a normative sample of 910 adolescents, and computed average peer group scores based on nominated friend scores. Results indicated that adolescents showed significant correlations between their own level of hostile attributions and that of their peer group. Further analyses indicated that this effect occurred specifically in reciprocal friendships, and was retained even once own and peer group level of aggression were controlled.