Exploring the experience of psychogenic syncope following diagnosis

This portfolio has three parts.I. Part one is a systematic literature review entitled ‘What are the psychological factors associated with psychogenic syncope or psychogenic non-epileptic seizures? Psychological factors that appear to be commonly linked to syncopal events of unknown medical origin are explored in relation to psychogenic syncope. Studies have widely acknowledged psychological distress in this patient group. The prevalence of psychological factors and their impact on people remains uncertain. A systematic search of four databases identified eleven studies. The findings are summarised and discussed from various perspectives. Clinical implications and areas of future research are highlighted.II. Part two is an empirical paper, utilising Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) entitled: ‘What are the experiences of people diagnosed with psychogenic syncope?’ The study explores peoples’ perspective of living with psychogenic syncope. A total of six people chose to participate in the study, which employed a semi-structured interview based on the self-regulation model (Leventhal, Nerenz & Steele, 1984). Five superordinate and seven subordinate themes emerged from the data. Peoples’ experience of psychogenic syncope was conceptualised by drawing on various theories in order to highlight a need for holistic healthcare practice. Wider psychosocial influences on people diagnosed with psychogenic syncope were also considered.III. Part three comprises appendices relating to part one and part two. Included in this is an epistemological statement of the stance of the researcher, and a reflective statement on the process of conducting the research, and its challenges

Agency is molecular: moved by being moved to moving or co-constitution in intra-active knowledge production

This practice-based PhD aims to intertwine theoretical research and artistic practice on the basis of knowledge production by conceptually thinking through motion, with movement informing the methodological counterpart in performative research settings. I argue that movement and the concept of motion, in their immanent potential for in/determinancy, transport possibilities of transversality that have been neglected in western Modernity. Both offer the means of moving beyond the bifurcated exceptionalism of Modernity's epistemology. The project interrogates its own positioning from within by affirming embodied ways of knowing, which are marginalised within the rationalised epistemes in European Universalisms (Wallerstein). In doing so it also takes a stand against appropriation. From a feminist position, new materialism's situatedness (Haraway) and relational objectivity (Barad) are particularly suitable tools for a shift from within. The apparatus definitions of Agential Realism gather insights through agential cuts that provide a transient exteriority-within, allowing modifying the bounds of knowing from within. The primary chapters examine the impact of practicing through theory and coalesce into a final experiment that reverses the process. Applied to the path of thoughts, movement's induction of changes to matter initiates an essential process of creating space for delinking (Mignolo/Walsh) and unlearning (Singh). The foundation of both practice- and theory-based approaches is Barad's notion of intra-active doing-being, which provides an understanding of agential intertwinement by approaching matter through and with interferences. In experiments, electronic devices were set to receive techno-sound-reverberations as diffractional concerns (noise), that transposed mattering (meaning) from co-constitutional forms. These 'voices', enacted in material-discursive experiments of various entangled engagements in different molecular matterings (body-mind, nature-culture, non-human-human, other-self) are typically ignored, denied, or misunderstood by the notorious bifurcation of the western metaphysical matrix (Jackson). Listening to matter’s iterative performativity (Barad) disclosed uneven levels of capacity (Wilderson) within such non-interrogated generalisations as the flattening to 'we' of the Anthropocene discourse. This awareness of interferential reverberations demands a multidirectional pluriverse of capabilities, which compromises any one-world (Law) exceptionality

Art as we don't know it

2018 marked the 10th anniversary of the Bioart Society and created the impetus for the publication of Art as We Don’t Know It. For this publication, the Bioart Society joined forces with the School of Arts, Design and Architecture of the Aalto University. The close history and ongoing collaborative relationship between the Bioart Society and Biofilia – Base for Biological Arts in the Aalto University lead to this mutual effort to celebrate together a diverse and nurturing environment to foster artistic practices on the intersection of art, science and society. Rather than stage a retrospective, we decided to invite writings that look forward and invite speculations about the potential directions of bioarts. The contributions range from peer-reviewed articles to personal accounts and inter-views, interspersed with artistic contributions and Bioart Society projects. The selection offers a purview of the rich variety, both in content and form, of the work currently being made within the field of bioart. The works and articles clearly trouble the porous and provisional definitions of what might be understood as bioart, and indeed definitions of bioart have been usefully and generativity critiqued since the inception of the term. Whilst far from being definitive, we consider the contributions of the book to be tantalising and valuable indicators of trends, visions and impulses. We also invite into the reading of this publication a consideration of potential obsolescences knowing that some of today’s writing will become archaic over time as technologies driven by contemporary excitement and hype are discarded. In so doing we also acknowledge and ponder upon our situatedness and the partialness of our purview in how we begin and find points of departure from which to anticipate the unanticipated. Whilst declining the view of retrospection this book does present art and research that has grown and flourished within the wider network of both the Bioart Society and Biofilia during the previous decade. The book is structured into four thematic sections Life As We Don’t Know It, Convergences, Learnings/Unlearnings, Redraw and Refigure and rounded off with a glossary

A Holy Curiosity: Transformative Self-Directed Learning to Breakthrough New Knowledge in the Case of Einstein

The case of Einstein’s discovery of the relativity theory, explored with grounded theory methodology, illustrates a type of self-directed learning characterized by personal and non-personal, or technical, transformative learning, the result of which is iconic original, breakthrough learning. This dissertation explores three aspects of adult learning which are novel in adult education. First, this study of breakthrough process, for which there is only one apparent precedent in adult education, considers how an individual goes about a self-directed learning project that revolutionizes a field. In this regard, the concept of original learning, as opposed to transmitted learning, presents itself as a valid element of adult learning and adult education. Next, the results argue for an expanded view of transformative learning: that it is not limited to adulthood, or to personal or socio-cultural domains, or to absolute designations of either completed transformative or non-transformative learning. Finally, considering the patterns in Einstein’s breakthrough journey in light of other models of breakthrough yields a broadly common process of breakthrough via challenge formation, navigating new territory, persevering through a long ordeal, and finally an actualization process of validation and integration. This common pattern can be found in the other model of self-directed breakthrough learning (Cavaliere’s example of the Wright brothers’ invention of flight); in Mezirow’s model of personal or socio-cultural transformative learning; in Campbell’s archetype of the hero’s journey in literature, film, and other forms of myth and story (elaborating Aristotle’s three-part structure for plot dynamics), and also in a neurobiological model of exceptional creativity based on classic creativity theory and contemporary scientific research. This grounded theory of independent breakthrough learning integrates these concepts. The result is a model of a meaningful question (passionate curiosity in a personally meaningful context) meeting transformative attention (critical reflection and a multi-dimensional process of deep interaction with the question), resulting in a breakthrough learning posture that can yield results on a continuum from creatively discovered answers in the existing base of human knowledge, to incremental contributions to that knowledge base, to profoundly transformative changes in perspective and capability in a field of human endeavor

Embracing the Bounty: Countering the Curriculum of Deficit

Embracing the Bounty: Countering the Curriculum of Deficit (2018) addresses the restrictive nature of neoliberalism and offers alternative perspectives and possibilities for change by countering the curriculum of deficit now prevalent in the United States – a curriculum reflective of neoliberalism’s invasion of public schools and the rationality that reduces students, teachers, and schools to statistics emphasizing economic value above all else. In this dissertation, the impact of neoliberalism on public schools and its destructive effects are discussed as are alternative philosophical frameworks. Through a series of essays, I explore how a curriculum of deficit infiltrated American public schools and demonstrate the ways in which rhizomatic theory and its inherent openness to diversity and creativity provide connections to the works of curriculum scholars and provide a foundation from which a curriculum of possibilities, rather than deficit, can be constructed. INDEX WORDS: Curriculum, Deficit Model, Standardization, Commodification, Neoliberalism, Creativity, Interdisciplinary, Deleuze and Guattari, Rhizomatic Theory, Diversity, Resistance, Greene, Eisner, From

'I'm learning nature now with them': what can a holistic perspective contribute to our understanding of the influential relations between young children, adults and a natural environment?

There is a contemporary concern about children’s loss of contact with the natural world and its associated benefits. Children’s reduced independent mobility is an influential factor and there is growing recognition of an interdependence between child and adult in accessing outdoor play. This research explores a gap in literature through considering impacts on adults in sharing outdoor experiences with children. A Froebelian holistic perspective has been foregrounded within this due to its understanding of child, adult and natural environment relations according to their mutual benefit. This has been investigated though a suburban preschool’s organization of family trips to local natural environments. Twelve participant families with children between two and four years old have formed the focus of research activity. A sensory ethnography approach has framed use of child-worn Go-Pros™ on trips and this footage has formed the basis for sensory elicitation interviews with adults. Fifteen hours of Go-Pro™ footage have been reviewed along with eleven hours of audio-recorded parent reflections. Analysis of these materials has drawn upon a vocabulary of holistic relations offered by the theory of the evolution of human consciousness (Gebser, 1949). This vocabulary gives equal value to the relational qualities expressed by adult and child (Chawla, 2002) and offers a lens through which to consider Froebelian pedagogical relationships. Findings have highlighted the potential for children to draw adults into immersive sensory experiences, big questions, and storied relations with their immediate surroundings. This can balance an adult potential to draw children towards a capacity for abstract relations with a whole or global context. Each can be considered significant in forming rich, thick, continuous connections between individual and whole and can align with sustainability thinking in a need to act local but think global. Froebelian philosophy may now offer a source of guidance towards an education for sustainable development through a path of familiar early years practices revitalized by a holistic logic

Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp