The battle between hoping and suffering : a conceptual model of hope within a context of spinal cord injury

The aim of this longitudinal study was to explore 10 patients’ experiences of the meaning they attribute to the substance of hope and the process of hoping during the first 3 to 4 years following a spinal cord injury. This qualitative study is a synthesis of three empirical studies of hope and the overall aim was to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon of hope, based on the text representing the main contextual findings, to develop a theoretical framework on hope within a context of spinal cord injury, illustrated in the conceptual model. In correspondence with Ricoeur, this conceptual model, which was developed from a new understanding, based on a new text of the phenomenon of hope, develops a new and deeper understanding of the meaning of hope. Findings revealed 9 themes: universal hope, uncertain hope, hope as a turning point, the power of hope, boundless creative and flexible hope, enduring hope, despairing hope, body-related hope, and existential hope. The conceptual model was derived from these themes, illustrated as The Battle between Hoping and Suffering and The Road of Hope. The interpretations also revealed a distinction between being in hope and having hope, and having a hope of improvements was the main focus at the early stage of rehabilitation, whereas being in hope as being just fine was the main focus after 3 to 4 years of rehabilitation. Key words: conceptual model on hope, despair, longing, suffering, vicious cycl

Never Alone. A study of articulations of indigenous religion in the video game

This thesis explores the many ways indigenous religion is articulated, performed and translated in the video game Never Alone - Kisima Inŋitchuŋa (2014). The video game was among the first of its kind – being made in a close collaboration with an indigenous group, and published by the first indigenous owned video game company in the U.S.A. At launch, Never Alone gathered attention from traditional media in both North America and in Europe, and the game reached a global audience. Never Alone tells a story based on Inupiat storytelling, and Cultural Ambassadors gives the player an insight into Inupiat culture and tradition. Never Alone balances on the edge between the conventions of the video game medium and its genres, and of indigenous tradition and religion. This thesis examines how vocabularies that can be related to ‘indigenous religion’ are used and translated in Never Alone, and how these vocabularies relate to a globalizing discourse on indigenous religion. This thesis also explores how the medium of video games facilitates new ways of reclaiming traditions and articulating indigenous religion

A port-reduced static condensation reduced basis element method for large component-synthesized structures: approximation and A Posteriori error estimation

Background: We consider a static condensation reduced basis element framework for efficient approximation of parameter-dependent linear elliptic partial differential equations in large three-dimensional component-based domains. The approach features an offline computational stage in which a library of interoperable parametrized components is prepared; and an online computational stage in which these component archetypes may be instantiated and connected through predefined ports to form a global synthesized system. Thanks to the component-interior reduced basis approximations, the online computation time is often relatively small compared to a classical finite element calculation. Methods: In addition to reduced basis approximation in the component interiors, we employ in this paper port reduction with empirical port modes to reduce the number of degrees of freedom on the ports and thus the size of the Schur complement system. The framework is equipped with efficiently computable a posteriori error estimators that provide asymptotically rigorous bounds on the error in the approximation with respect to the underlying finite element discretization. We extend our earlier approach for two-dimensional scalar problems to the more demanding three-dimensional vector-field case. Results and Conclusions: This paper focuses on linear elasticity analysis for large structures with tens of millions of finite element degrees of freedom. Through our procedure we effectively reduce the number of degrees of freedom to a few thousand, and we demonstrate through extensive numerical results for a microtruss structure that our approach provides an accurate, rapid, and a posteriori verifiable approximation for relevant large-scale engineering problems.Research Council of NorwayUnited States. Office of Naval Research (ONR Grant N00014-11-0713

Sovereign Risk Indices and Bayesian Theory Averaging

In economic applications, model averaging has found principal use examining the validity of various theories related to observed heterogeneity in outcomes such as growth, development, and trade.Though often easy to articulate, these theories are imperfectly captured quantitatively. A number of different proxies are often collected for a given theory and the uneven nature of this collection requires care when employing model averaging. Furthermore, if valid, these theories ought to be relevant outside of any single narrowly focused outcome equation. We propose a methodology which treats theories as represented by latent indices, these latent processes controlled by model averaging on the proxy level. To achieve generalizability of the theory index our framework assumes a collection of outcome equations. We accommodate a flexible set of generalized additive models, enabling non-Gaussian outcomes to be included. Furthermore, selection of relevant theories also occurs on the outcome level, allowing for theories to be differentially valid. Our focus is on creating a set of theory-based indices directed at understanding a country's potential risk of macroeconomic collapse. These Sovereign Risk Indices are calibrated across a set of different "collapse" criteria, including default on sovereign debt, heightened potential for high unemployment or inflation and dramatic swings in foreign exchange values. The goal of this exercise is to render a portable set of country/year theory indices which can find more general use in the research community