European University of Tirana

The COVID-19 pandemic has favored the rapid adoption of digital solutions into mental healthcare services. This study investigates the competency of mental healthcare providers delivering eMental Health services in Kosovo, exploring advantages, disadvantages, and factors influencing remote service implementation. Employing a convergent parallel design mixed method, the study involved 197 mental healthcare providers (57% female, 42% male) who responded to demographic questions and the eHealth Competency Scale; and 24 mental healthcare providers (18 psychologists, 6 psychiatrists) who participated in semistructured interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using IBM SPSS, while inductive thematic analysis identified implications of delivering remote services by categorizing themes extracted from the interviews. The results indicate that mental healthcare providers are competent in delivering remote service. Notably, psychologists and psychiatrists exhibit significant differences in digital tool usage (Z = -3.503; p = .001), as well as females and males in self-efficacy (Z = -2.29; p = .02) and digital tool usage (Z = -3.14; p = .02). Also, 80.1% of study participants reported a lack of guidance for digital tools, and 62.8% noted the absence of established digital care standards. Qualitative analysis yields five major themes: (1) (In) Efficiency, (2) Therapist skills, (3) Relationship with client, (4) Ethical/legal considerations, and (5) (In) capacities to deliver remote services-highlighting the absence of guidelines and standards as the most challenging part of assistance. The implementation of eMental healthcare encounters enduring and significant challenges. Rather than serving as a replacement for face-to-face care, it is imperative to recognize eMental healthcare as a complementary dimension of client/patient care.

Test-time scaling (TTS) has emerged as a powerful paradigm for improving the reasoning performance of large language models (LLMs) by investing additional compute at inference time. A central component of TTS is the verifier, which selects or scores candidate solutions to guide the search process. While prior work has explored the benefit of verification, a fundamental question remains underexplored: what is the optimal granularity of verification under a given compute budget? Coarse-grained outcome reward models (ORMs) and fine-grained process reward models (PRMs) represent two extremes, yet neither alone achieves compute-optimality across all regimes. In this paper, we establish a unified theoretical framework, called GRACE (Granularity-Regulated Adaptive Computational Efficiency), that characterizes the optimal verification granularity as an explicit function of problem difficulty, verifier accuracy, and compute budget. We prove that there exists a phase transition: fine-grained verification dominates when either the compute budget is large or the problem is hard, whereas coarse-grained verification is preferred in the low-budget, easy-problem regime. Our theory unifies Best-of-N, beam search, and step-level MCTS within a single Pareto-optimality framework, and motivates an adaptive granularity strategy that provably achieves the compute-performance Pareto frontier. Empirical results on MATH-500, GSM8K, and AIME benchmarks corroborate all four theoretical claims, with our adaptive strategy outperforming fixed-granularity baselines by up to 3.1% accuracy at matched compute.

Abstract The impact of judicial independence on strengthening the rule of law in transitional democracies constitutes a significant area of analysis in this paper. The study focuses on a comparative examination of four transitional European democracies: Croatia, Romania, Poland, and Hungary. Judicial independence is a fundamental prerequisite for institutional stability, the integrity of judicial decision-making, and the overall credibility of the legal system. To assess the relationship between judicial independence and the rule of law, the analysis incorporates a range of international institutional and empirical indicators, including the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index, the V-Dem Judicial Independence Index, CEPEJ data, and the EU Justice Scoreboard. These indicators provide a comprehensive framework for evaluating judicial performance and the effectiveness of mechanisms designed to safeguard judicial autonomy. The findings indicate that countries characterized by transparent procedures for the appointment and discipline of judges, together with robust judicial self-governance mechanisms, tend to maintain higher levels of judicial autonomy and institutional effectiveness. Conversely, political interference and the absence of independent oversight mechanisms are closely associated with diminished judicial credibility, reduced institutional performance, and a weakened rule of law. The study concludes that the adoption of transparent institutional practices aligned with international standards is essential for consolidating the rule of law and fostering the development of democratic institutions in transitional democracies.

Total Quality management (TQM) is a philosophy management method, the importance of which continuously has been growing after '90. There is relatively short time since Kosovo Public Institutions are practically doing their activity as a part of an independent Country, and as such day by day they are facing with different management challenges which continuously are becoming more rough and tough towards the EU integration process. Total Quality Management within Public Institutions, is leaded by the phase of establishment and implementation of Quality management Systems based on ISO 9001. In this process, through a deep empiric study in three Kosovo Public Institutions, we have tried to identify the advantage and disadvantage factors towards the successful implementation of quality management system in time, as a consequence of TQM. Moreover, we were focused on the organizational culture. Analyses over norms, trusts, principals that do characterize the organizational culture of Kosovo Institutions, its crossing with the political context and the Public Administration law will serve to model changes that should be projected in order to successfully implement the TQM. In the function of the disadvantage factor analyses, organizational cultural elements, and the changes model, there will be used a number questionnaires and interviews with relevant people.

This article examines the historical transformation of sovereignty in the small states of the Western Balkans in a period marked by intensified interdependence and evolving security practices. Rather than treating sovereignty as a fixed legal principle, the study approaches it as a historically contingent concept shaped by post–Cold War state formation, international supervision, and contemporary geopolitical pressures. Situated within contemporary political historiography, the article treats sovereignty not as a normative endpoint, but as a historical process whose meaning has been continuously renegotiated across successive post–Cold War phases. Combining elements of conceptual history with qualitative document-based analysis, the article traces how sovereignty has been progressively reconfigured under conditions of European integration, collective security arrangements, and hybrid forms of conflict. The analysis demonstrates that in the Western Balkans sovereignty operates primarily as a functional and negotiated process rather than as an absolute attribute of statehood. While formal independence remains intact, effective authority is increasingly conditioned by economic dependence, institutional frameworks, and external security guarantees provided by the European Union and NATO. The article further argues that the changing nature of warfare—particularly cyber, informational, and digital threats—has shifted the locus of sovereignty from territorial control toward the management of information and critical infrastructure. Attention is also given to the human and moral dimensions of sovereignty, emphasizing the relationship between state authority, responsibility, and human security. The article concludes by conceptualizing the Western Balkans as a laboratory of “smart and shared sovereignty,” in which small states seek resilience and legitimacy through cooperation, regional integration, and adaptive governance within an increasingly fragmented international order.