Nostalgic to my Childhood, Symbolic to Your Culture: Discussing the Intercultural Adaptation of Culturally Bound Fairy Tales

This essay explores fairy tales as culturally bound stories that serve as the means of preserving and passing on cultural values and collective identity. Under the guise of cultural preservation and teaching, fairy tales communicate cultural values, therefore keeping cultures ideologically stagnant; however, when appropriated fairy tales, the fairy tales cannot be fully appreciated for their cultural and ideological value. By first establishing fairy tales as communication symbols that inform cultural tradition and ideology, fairy tales are discussed for their role in moral education for children and in shaping children’s perceptions of culture. German fairy tales from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the Brothers Grimm are examined for their association with the construction of German culture and the rise of German nationalism. Finally, fairy tales are discussed for their role in American culture, though as appropriated texts, are tokens of entertainment rather than culture

Simulations

The French philosopher, Michel Foucault, in his book, The Order of Things, portrays two discontinuous systems of representation characteristic to Western Culture. They are the Classical and Modern

Ice-albedo tipping points in a diffusive energy-balance model with land and ocean

The ice-albedo feedback is associated with the nonlinearity in the climate system, due to the sudden change in albedo between ice-free and ice-covered surfaces. This nonlinearity can potentially cause abrupt and dramatic shifts in the climate, referred to as tipping points. It is also believed that this mechanism has contributed significantly to the precipitous losses of Arctic sea ice, which have outpaced the projections of most climate models. This feedback mechanism has been studied since at least the nineteenth century, and it has had a major role in climate science ever since. The tipping points that result from this mechanism has changed the way we view the history of the Earth with the introduction of, among other things, the snowball Earth hypothesis. In this thesis we will introduce land area to a diffusive Energy Balance Model, and study these critical transitions. We will also test for Early Warning signals for these tipping points

Sáhka

Elite football today is infused with technologies for collecting data on players' performance and health. Technologies such as wearable health and fitness trackers, full-body medical scans, and positional systems mounted around a stadium give coaches a wide range of accurate data about their players. However, coaches do not have the time or ability to analyze all this data for each player to give them individualized training schedules. Hence, coaches need tools to collect, analyze, summarize, and present the data to them in a much more consumable format. Existing systems within sports technology are isolated, only collecting their own data and using it for their own purposes. Hence, Sáhka will break out of this norm and create a novel system within this domain. Sáhka is a system that federates relevant data from several different sources. The data is processed, stored, analyzed, and presented visually to the users. Additionally, by collecting a large quantity and variety of data, Sáhka acts as a Big Data repository for real-time sports data. In the future, Sáhka will be used as a platform for training Machine Learning algorithms

Verlinden B.V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria: Expanding Jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

In 1976 Congress enacted the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act\u27 to clarify the law surrounding actions in United States federal courts against foreign states. Congress intended to establish the sole and ex- clusive standards to be used in resolving questions of sovereign immu- nity The Act provides comprehensive guidelines on when and how a party can bring suit against a foreign state. By contrast, Verlinden B. V v. Central Bank of Nigeria addresses who can bring suit under the Act. In Verlinden, the Supreme Court interpreted the Act to enable not only domestic plaintiffs, but also foreign plaintiffs, to sue foreign defendants in the federal courts under certain circumstances.\u27 Having determined that the Act allows foreign parties to sue foreign sovereigns in United States courts, the Court further held that constitutionally-based federal interests in foreign affairs and regulation of foreign commerce provide sufficient basis for federal jurisdiction in all such suits.\u27 By unanimously ruling that the resolution of suits brought by for- eign plaintiffs under the FSIA does not exceed the scope of judicial power delineated in Article III of the Constitution, the Supreme Court made a strong move to facilitate Congress\u27 ability to influence and regu-late foreign commerce. The Court\u27s holding may also reflect a larger trend toward greater United States intervention in world affairs

Family focus in mental health and social services for adults: Supporting minor children of parents in challenging life situations

Parental mental illness, parents’ loss of ability to work and family poverty affect children and put them at risk for adverse life outcomes. Support for and attendance to minor children and parenting in adult mental health and social services should therefore be an incorporated practice. The main aim of this thesis was to investigate the extent and quality of a family focus in these adult services. Paper 1 investigates self-reported levels of parenting sense of competence among parents with a mental illness. The findings were that parents with a mental illness did not report lower on their parenting sense of competence scores compared to samples from the general population. The paper discusses whether parents felt sufficiently safe to convey any difficulties in parenting they might experience. Paper 2 evaluates the performance of the Child Talks intervention in mental health services using both qualitative and qualitative methods. Results were that few patients, and even fewer children of patients, participated in Child Talks. The quality of the support and follow-up that professionals provided to children and families was inadequate. Paper 3 explores the level of child focus in practices and the level of knowledge and use of the UN CRC among counselors in social services for adults. The main result of the paper was that thematizing children’s situation was not a part of common practice in social services for adults. In conclusion, findings from the three papers suggest that children and parenting is not an incorporated focus among professionals in mental health and social services for adults. The extent and the quality of the family focus in these adult services is insufficient to enable prevention of adverse life outcomes for children and to enable direction of further support of families.Foreldre som mottar behandling i psykiske helsetjenester eller rådgivning i NAV er i livssituasjoner som påvirker barna deres. Denne avhandlingen handler om ivaretakelse og støtte av mindreårige barn av foreldre som mottar hjelp fra helse og sosialtjenestene for voksne. Artikkel 1 handler om pasientenes rapporterte opplevelse av tilfredshet og mestring av foreldrerollen. Artikkel 2 handler om helsepersonells informasjon og støtte til barn av pasienter i psykisk helsevern for voksne med bruk av tiltaket Barneperspektivsamtalen. Artikkel 3 handler om veiledere i NAV sitt fokus på klientenes mindreårige barn. Hovedresultatet i denne avhandlingen er at barn og foreldrerollen adresseres i for liten grad i tjenester for voksne hvor foreldre er i utfordrende livssituasjoner. Få barn inkluderes i samtaler, barnas situasjon tas i for liten grad hensyn til, barn og foreldrerollen er i for liten grad et tema, og kvaliteten på oppfølgingen barna og familien får av profesjonelle i tjenestene er for lav. Et familiefokus er ikke en integrert del av praksisen i sosial- og psykisk helsetjenester for voksne. Et avgrenset fokus på brukeren eller pasienten i utdanning, praksis, organiseringen av tjenestene, overordnede retningslinjer og systemer, i politikken og i bevilgninger diskuteres som faktorer som bidrar til å opprettholde et manglede barneperspektiv

Implementing Holocaust literature in Social Studies English and English Literature and Culture in Norwegian upper secondary schools

This thesis looks at how the Holocaust can be taught about in the subjects Social Studies English and English Literature and Culture in Norwegian Upper Secondary Schools by reading personal narratives of the Holocaust: Maus by Art Spiegelman, Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance by Lawrence Sutin, The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick and the poems Never Shall I Forget by Elie Wiesel, Shipment to Maidanek by Ephraim Fogel, Holocaust by Charles Reznikoff, Leaving You and I Keep Forgetting by Lily Brett and Riddle by William Heyen. The thesis deals with how the topic is best studied with the aid of the literature mentioned, thus examining how the students should be organized into groups to each study one book/set of poems, and how the literature should be analyzed from an educational perspective

“And then I check to see if it looks legit” – digital critical competence in teacher education

Background Impulsivity is a transdiagnostic feature linked to severe clinical expression and a potential target for psychopharmacological strategies. Biological underpinnings are largely unknown, but involvement of immune dysregulation has been indicated, and the efects of psychopharmacological agents vary. We investigated if impul‑ sivity was associated with circulating immune marker levels and with a range of psychopharmacological treatment regimens in severe mental disorders. Methods Impulsivity was assessed in a sample (N=657) of patients with schizophrenia or schizophreniform disorder (SCZ) (N=116) or bipolar disorder (BD) (N=159) and healthy participants (N=382) using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) questionnaire. Plasma levels of systemic immune markers (RANTES, IL-1RA, IL-18, IL-18BP, sTNFR-1) were measured by enzyme immunoassays. Patients underwent thorough clinical assessment, including evaluation of psy‑ chotropic medication. Associations were assessed using linear regressions. Results Impulsivity was positively associated with SCZ (p<0.001) and BD (p<0.001) diagnosis and negatively associated with age (p<0.05), but not signifcantly associated with any of the circulating immune markers indepen‑ dently of diagnostic status. Among patients, impulsivity was negatively associated with lithium treatment (p=0.003) and positively associated with antidepressant treatment (p=0.011) after controlling for diagnosis, psychotropic comedications, manic symptoms, and depressive symptoms. Conclusions We report elevated impulsivity across SCZ and BD but no associations to systemic immune dysregu‑ lation based on the current immune marker selection. The present study reveals associations between impulsivity in severe mental disorders and treatment with lithium and antidepressants, with opposite directions. Future studies are warranted to determine the causal directionality of the observed associations with psychopharmacotherapy