Unspooling of Experience into Space: Diary Projects

Through meditation and layering of yarns, I visually present the process of embracing myself, specifically my personal traumas, and cultural duality. The tension between concealing and revealing of constant shifts in emotion is a crucial facet of my artwork. Evolving from an art therapy technique, the Winnicott Squiggle Game, I am drawn to the connections one can make with one another from a simple cluster of lines and create images as a result. These images are a result of intention and accident, a combination that mimics inevitable life choices. My method of creating each canvas is a very intricate process and becomes a form of meditation, embodying the essential meaning of my work. Expressing obsession of art making and repetitive labor with use of yarn is essential for me. Tangible interaction with the fluid yarn, that I do not have complete control over, is crucial as I ‘draw’ with thread and yarn. These sets of lines create texture and movement, which allow for a distinct experience of the viewer depending on what has been done to these organic forms. The organic forms represent the macro and micro; the forms all come together to be complete. The audience are able to experience my process of art making and meditation. In the thesis, I will discuss the importance of repeated artmaking process and influences of abstract expressionism. I will also examine how emotions and sympathy is universal through my visualization of a space that encompasses the viewers

Case Study on Narrative Therapy for Schizophrenic Adolescents

AbstractThis study explores narrative therapy that could work positively on teenagers who were diagnosed as schizophrenic to improve their communication competence. This study focuses on the self-narrative and communicative therapy to help patients’ treatment

Learning by Movement Performance

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to describe a movement performance therapy approach based on a movement analysis of learners. The movement therapy, which considers class performances as “learning as life-text,” is grounded on the class performances and processes (Orth, 2011; Halprin, 2012). Learners, as a society member of the school, are also the subject of the social development. Therefore, this study focuses on the mutual performance formed by the inter-related body, mind and society. They would know what the obstacles of movement performances are and how the remedy is working for their internalized and oppressed movement performances. Learners were resourced to self-heal from the class performances as “learning as life-text.” Consequently, they became the subject of learning through the changing process in them

Hybrid choice models : principles and recent progress incorporating social influence and nonlinear utility functions

AbstractHybrid choice models have been developed as an extension of discrete choice models, particularly multinomial logit models, in an attempt to include attitudinal variables. The quintessence of hybrid choice models is that a model of attitude formation is estimated and the estimated attitudes are added to the commonly used set of attributes in discrete choice models: attributes of the choice alternatives and socio-demographic variables. The most commonly applied model is based on linear specifications, both for the attitude model and the utility function. In this review paper, we discuss the principles underlying the hybrid choice model, summarize the specifications used in previous applications of the model and then continue discussing recent progress that added social influence to the model specification and replaced the linear specification of the utility function with a nonlinear function

Work schedule arrangements in two-adult households with children

The concept “work schedule arrangement” refers to the decision how many hours per week to work and how to allocate these hours across the days of the week. In two-adult households with children, the work schedule arrangement of parents is more complicated owing to the presence of children, which induces a series of activities that parents need to organize and coordinate. Besides considering personal preferences, parents also need to trade-off between working longer to generate more income and have better promotion opportunities, and working less hours to have enough time to organize and conduct other activities, especially children-related activities. In modeling work schedule arrangements of two-adult households with children, we first develop a random utility model to represent the work schedule decision-making process. It assumes that the utility of work arrangements is not only a function of work duration and other job characteristics, but also of the (joint) time to spend with or take care of the children. We therefore include the state of the children, which indicates the location where they are at any given moment in time (home, school/day care). Under the assumption that households maximize the utility derived from their work schedule, weekly work schedules for each spouse are generated, subject to observed daily and weekly total household and/or individual working hours. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the model, we compare the difference between the generated and observed work schedules of the households. The results show that the model accurately predicts observed work schedules in terms of start time, number of working hours and days of the week.</p

The Effect of Food Price on Food Insecurity and Diet Quality: Exploring Potential Moderating Roles of SNAP and Consumer Competency

Higher food prices may aggravate household food insecurity and hurt diet quality. Using a sample of low-income households from the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), this study examines whether local food prices affect food insecurity and nutritional quality of foods acquired, and how households use competent consumer behaviors to mitigate any adverse effects of price. Financial management practices, nutrition literacy, and conscientious food shopping practices were considered for consumer competency. Our findings indicate that low-income households in higher-cost areas, regardless of whether they participate in SNAP or not, are more likely to adopt loyalty or other store savings programs than those in areas where food cost is relatively lower. Also, controlling for local food cost and various household characteristics, SNAP participants are more likely to use loyalty programs or other store savings, and are more likely to be aware of the dietary guidelines than nonparticipants. Our findings suggest that, although theoretically households could benefit from various consumer competencies and skills especially when the food cost is high, taking advantage of competent consumption strategies may be out of reach for many low-income consumers dealing with high food cost. Further, policies that incentivize competent or conscientious consumption among program participants might decrease food insecurity but likely at the expense of lowered nutritional quality of acquired foods, as long as less healthy food choices are also less expensive

Paradigms, clusters and traditions on urban health - Articulating diverse ontological perspectives to urban health research and policymaking

The development of knowledge and policy for improving health through urban planning involves multiple disciplines and sectors. Achieving effective policymaking and knowledge production requires transdisciplinary collaboration, which necessitates a willingness among participants to collaborate in areas outside their respective fields. To establish such collaborations, it is crucial to identify and acknowledge the ontological perspectives of the actors involved. This thesis aims to identify and articulate diverse ontological perspectives on urban health and their implications for advancing transdisciplinary approaches to urban health. The concept of paradigms is applied to identify four urban health paradigms: the ‘medical-industrial city,’ ‘urban health science,’ ‘healthy built environment,’ and ‘health social movement’ paradigms. A meta-narrative review, guided by a bibliometric co-citation network analysis, identifies five urban health research traditions: sustainable urban development, urban ecosystem services, urban resilience, healthy urban planning, and urban green spaces. The four urban health paradigms and five urban health research traditions are employed to analyse the presentation of urban health policy ideas in the planning of the Western Parkland City in Greater Sydney, Australia. The analysis reveals that the key urban health policy ideas are grounded in different sets of urban health paradigms and are involved with different types of urban health research traditions. This finding highlights the need for transdisciplinary approaches to policymaking and indicates that effective urban health policy solutions require collaboration among actors with diverse perspectives. In conclusion, this thesis emphasises the importance of recognising and reflecting on diverse ontological perspectives on urban health to produce and interpret transdisciplinary knowledge for the goal of improving health by transforming urban systems. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers must seek coherence by understanding the similarities and differences in their approaches to urban health to create an opportunity for coherence in understanding knowledge generated from different paradigms