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Hvordan erfarer miljøterapeuter i kommunale rus- og psykisk helsetjenester det å hjelpe tjenestebrukere med å håndtere vanskelige følelser?
Full text linkSAMMENDRAG
Mål med prosjektet har vært å utforske hvordan miljøterapeuter i kommunale rus- og psykisk helsetjenester erfarer det å hjelpe tjenestebrukere med å håndtere vanskelige følelser.
Studien har et kvalitativt forskningsdesign med en fenomenologisk-hermeneutisk vitenskapsteoretisk tilnærming. Datainnsamlingen består av fem semistrukturerte dybdeintervjuer av ansatte som jobber miljøterapeutisk i kommunale rus- og psykisk helsetjenester. Fire av informantene er miljøterapeuter og en av dem er miljøarbeider. Intervjuene ble analysert ved hjelp av refleksiv tematisk analyse fra Braun og Clarke (2022).
Analysen resulterte i fire sentrale tema; (1) Informantene opplever at de er til hjelp ved å være tilgjengelige, rolige, lytte og ta utgangspunkt i brukerens behov. (2) Det er meningsfullt å jobbe i tråd med egne verdier, ha en god relasjon og se fremgang. (3) Det kan være faglig og emosjonelt krevende å hjelpe med vanskelige følelser. (4) Informantene trenger støtte, veiledning og kompetanse.
For å øke mestringsopplevelsen og redusere usikkerhet rundt hjelpeoppgaven, er det behov for både forskjellige typer støtte og tilrettelegging på systemnivå.
Nøkkelord: kommunalt ansatte; rus- og psykisk helsetjenester; miljøterapi; erfaringsbasert kunnskap; følelsesregulering; meningsfullt; støttebehov.
SUMMARY
The aim of the master thesis project has been to explore how milieu therapists in municipal health and care services experience helping service users with difficult emotions.
The study has a qualitative research design with a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach. Data collection consists of five semi-structured in-depth interviews with community staff in municipal health and care services. Four of the participants are milieu therapists, and one is a milieu worker. The interviews were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s (2022) reflexive thematic analysis.
The analysis resulted in four main themes. (1) The informants feel that they are helpful by being available, calm, listening, and basing their approach on the pasient’s needs. (2) It is meaningful to work in accordance with one’s own values, to have a good relationship and to see progress. (3) It can be professionally and emotionally demanding to help with difficult emotions. (4) The informants need support, guidance, and competence.
In order to increase a sense of mastery and reduce uncertainty regarding the helping task, there is a need for different types of support, as well as facilitation at the system level.
Key words: municipal employees; mental health services; environmental therapy; experience-based knowledge; emotion regulation; meaningful; need for support
Data visualizations in journalistic media studied from the perspectives of visual-numeric literacy, everyday mathematics and mathematization as a social process
Full text linkData visualizations (DVs) are visual representations of quantitative data, which are used to convey information. The aim of my PhD research was to better understand the implications for readers of the use of DVs in journalistic media. Journalistic DVs were explored from the perspectives of
(1) Visual-numeric literacy (VNL), which describes the capabilities that DVs demand from readers,
(2) Everyday mathematics, which is the mathematics that people engage with in various life situations (school, work, domestic life, etc.), and
(3) Mathematization as a social process, the tendency of some human practices to become increasingly quantitative and mathematical.
In this PhD, the main theoretical perspective was social semiotics, but it was also informed by a sociological perspective of late modernity. The empirical base for the studies in this PhD was textual analysis of newspaper weather forecasts (NWFs) in the period 1945-2020 and journalistic COVID-19 DVs, and an analysis of interviews with young adults on their sense making of COVID-19 DVs.
The analysis revealed that NWFs shifted over time from verbally ‘telling’ readers about the weather, to offering abundant information in tables and maps that the readers must organize and interpret themselves. The senders’ voice changed from being a conversationalist or scientist to a blend of an advertiser and a scientist. These changes relate to processes of mathematization in meteorology and journalism. The analysis of journalistic COVID-19 DVs showed that the DVs convey much information (how many, where, how it changes, etc.) through numerous formats (maps, line graphs, etc.), complex sign systems (coordinates, relative numbers, color codes, etc.) and flexible use of conventions (e.g., missing vertical axis). Readers were expected to make sense of these DVs and interpret their significance and implications. Cues about data sources, data handling methods and errors invited readers to reflect on the trustworthiness of the data and their visualization. The interviews showed that adults have unequal opportunities for making sense of DVs. It was observed that the three aspects of VNL, decoding, acting (e.g. toggling in a DV, using a DV for making decisions) and reflection were mutually supporting one another, and a readers’ background knowledgeabout the situation (i.e., COVID-19) supported the understanding of the sign system.
Regarding VNL, everyday mathematics, mathematization as a social process and the connection between these perspectives my research offers evidence that the use of DVs in journalistic media has increased over time, that they mediate information from experts (meteorologists, epidemiologists) to lay people, that the VNL required of readers is quite sophisticated, and that journalistic DVs have changed everyday mathematics. The changes do not consist of more or less mathematics, but of an increased variety of quantitative information presented in visual, flexible and informal systems. A sociological synthesis relates the complexities of reading DVs to mathematization as a social process. For example, globalization and reembedding (of journalism, DVs, meteorology, epidemiology, data collections, mathematical models, VNL, etc.) enable readers of DVs to access more and more diverse information yet creates obstacles for intimacy and trust through the increased opacity of underlying data collections and mathematical models. Insight into these mathematical processes is necessary for reflecting critically on DVs. Mathematics education can play a key role in helping students to develop their VNL and pave the way for participating in society, and lifelong learning.publishedVersio
Å tørre å ta den «vanskelige samtalen» i klasserommet: En kvalitativ undersøkelse av historielæreres forhold til kontroversielle tema i historiefaget.
Full text linkAbstract
This thesis investigates how history teachers in Norwegian upper secondary schools approach the teaching of controversial and emotionally charged topics. Through a qualitative research design, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with seven history teachers and classroom observations of six of them, aiming to understand how these teachers define, select, and navigate such topics in their practice.
The study is grounded in a historical didactic framework, emphasizing concepts such as historical consciousness, historical empathy, and the role of history education in creating democratic citizenship. It also engages with theories of controversial issues in pedagogy. The analysis reveals that what is understood as a historical topic controversial or emotionally sensitive is not inherent to the topic itself but is socially constructed, often connected to time and place. Teachers report that topics like neo-imperialism, ongoing conflicts like the Israeli Palestinian-conflict, and racism are topics that they would categorize as controversial topics. On the other side, topics that is touching students identity can evoke strong emotional responses and moral dilemmas in the classroom.
Teachers employ various strategies to address these challenges, including presenting multiple perspectives, having open dialogue, and maintaining a balance between emotional engagement and academic detachment. Some teachers adopt a neutral facilitator role, while others see themselves as moral guides, helping students navigate complex historical narratives. Some uses devil’s advocate for creating a discussion, or making the pupils defend their arguments. The findings suggest that teachers' approaches are influenced by factors such as their own viewpoints on the topic, perceived student demographics and what they want to achieve with their teaching.
The study highlights the importance of addressing controversial and emotional topics in history education, not only to develop students' critical thinking and historical understanding but also to prepare them for active and informed citizenship. It underscores the need for professional support to help teachers with the necessary tools to handle such topics effectively. By situating the research within the Norwegian educational context, the thesis contributes to the literature on history teachers' practices in dealing with controversial issues and calls for further research in this area
Towards a Relational Tsetlin Machine in Natural Language Processing
Full text linkAs Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes an integral part of everyday life both at the personal and at the societal level, there is a concerted effort to have AI models explain their decisions. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) aims to increase user trust in AI systems, as well as prevent misuse and perpetuation of bias.
One of the ways that humans interact with AI is through natural language text. Since language understanding at the human level requires logical structures, integration of logic programming in natural language processing can be advantageous for natural language processing at the computational level. Due to the multifaceted nature of language, AI language systems have to consider multiple different aspects of each single piece of text. Introducing compositionality via relational modelling can capture such complex information as an aggregation of simpler parts. Like other branches of AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP) also benefits from XAI, where practitioners and end users can confirm that important information or context is not being lost in translation.
Tsetlin Machines (TMs) use learning automata to provide interpretable decisions to classification problems. It learns clauses or sub-patterns constructed from the features available to it. In a simple classification task, multiple of these clauses vote to indicate which class a sample belongs to. TMs’ pattern recognition approach have proved successful in variety of image classification and NLP tasks. However, there has been no targeted research into using TMs as a tool of XAI within the aspects of language analysis.
In this thesis, using terminology from XAI, we establish that the clauses learnt by a TM, taken collectively, encompass the global description of the task to be solved, and the subset of clauses that decide on a single test sample form a local description of the sample. We then establish that a TM-based system can produce human-interpretable decisions in dialogue-related semantic tasks, including entity identification and semantic relation identification. By comparing with available expert annotations, we document that the global descriptions match to a large degree on such tasks. The local descriptions allow for observation of how the model shifts its focus between different aspects of the text as required.
We also exhibit that the TM can build a logical structure for reasoning based on the relationships present in natural language text. While a standard or vanilla TM depends on propositional input and creates propositional clauses to encode its decisions, we present a modified version termed as the Relational Tsetlin Machine (RTM). The RTM works on relations and their included entities, such that theresultant learning is in terms of roles played by entity types. In contrast to the vanilla TM, which uses constants or words from the vocabulary, the RTM uses variables, which allows for creation of generic Horn Clauses that effectively capture logical interactions in the text.
The third contribution of this thesis is in the form of a framework that utilizes the TM to overcome the challenges of data changes. Most AI applications require large amount of data in order to perform well. But data can have different characteristics when it comes from different sources or different time instances. This is true for natural language data as well, since language changes both historically and geographically, and even between spoken, written, or on-line usage. We show that a TM-based system can identify differing characteristics in data, isolate the samples that do not conform with the majority and also provide ways to mitigate the effect such samples have on the model performance.publishedVersio
Hyperreal Histories: Memory, Simulacra, and Resistance in Julian Barnes’ England, England
Full text linkThis thesis examines how Julian Barnes’s England, England explores the construction and commodification of national memory under late capitalism, while also revealing the subtle endurance of the real. Set against a backdrop of simulated history and cultural spectacle, the novel critiques the mechanisms by which collective identity is curated, marketed, and performed. However, it also resists total dystopia. Drawing on theories of collective memory (Halbwachs), hyperreality (Baudrillard), imagined communities (Anderson), and everyday resistance (de Certeau and Scott), this study explores how Barnes embeds quiet but potent acts of subversion into his narrative—gestures, performances, habits, and fragmented memories that slip beneath hegemonic scripts. By attending to these small resistances, the thesis argues that England, England offers a vision of cultural survival not in grand revolutions, but in slow, often ironic, recollections and rituals. These acts, though fragile, reaffirm memory as a site of struggle and regeneration. In a world obsessed with simulation, the novel insists on the possibility of authenticity, not as a fixed origin, but as an embodied, relational, and continually contested presence
From Automation to Augmentation : Exploring Digital Self-Service and the Role of Workers in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Industry 5.0
Full text linkTo date, automation is still one of the key drivers for business transformation. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), business-related tasks are in-creasingly performed by machines, in particular with recent developments in generative AI (GenAI). Across service sectors, the Covid-19 pandemic further accelerated digitalization of offerings, necessitating services without human touch. Despite the need to automate, the successful implementation of digital technologies within organizations is still proving to be a challenge; many digital transformation projects fail. Possible explanations include a lack of understand-ing of resulting changes, missing skills, or absence of an expansive strategy for organizations to adapt.
Despite the vast interest, automation is occurring slower than anticipated. Alt-hough automation is the term most commonly referred to, augmentation is now receiving increasing attention. While automation describes human tasks that are taken over by machines, augmentation is used to define tasks where human and machine collaborate. Recognizing the need for human workers as we move into Industry 5.0, scholars and practitioners have thus started arguing for the need to augment.
Along with automation efforts and digitalized services, self-service technology (SST) has been a way to automate by delivering directly to consumers. SST pro-vides accessible, often affordable, services to individuals around the clock, com-monly without the need for human touch. With solutions such as robo-advisors, self-checkouts, or symptom checkers, consumers have become co-producers of service delivery, reducing the need for human-to-human interactions altogether. However, whether for touristic, legal, or financial advice, individuals are increas-ingly trusting information available online, neglecting its limitations and possible risks.
As digital SST receives human traits and artificial intelligence, the need for hu-man workers in services declines, once again reviving debates on automation and fears of being replaced. Although automation and self-service existed for many decades, the current technological, economical, and societal landscape today ne-cessitates the continuation and evolution of this matter. This means to reevaluate automation in the context of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Constant technological change, improper working conditions, and inequality call for human-centered automation strategies that promote accessible services and augmented work environments.
Without a doubt, the opportunities provided by SST and automation are numer-ous, but the challenges are mounting as we move into Industry 5.0. As I argue, automation today cannot be viewed independently but has to be understood holis-tically. As such, automation and augmentation coexist, and SST can serve as ena-bler. Combined, I believe that automation entails augmentation and as such re-sults in changes that have to be understood at a larger scale as actors within and outside the organization are affected. From the service lens, this means that SST not only automates from the consumer perspective, but it enables augmentation as new interfaces allow for hybrid service delivery across physical, digital, and social realms.
The here presented PhD project aims to provide insight for scholars and practi-tioners on the ongoing organizational impact from SST-driven automation and augmentation in service sectors. As exemplary cases, the financial and healthcare sectors were chosen due to their similar advice-giving practice, established pro-cedures, and fundamental consumer/patient interaction. Along this debate, this work is situated in management studies, exploring the interplay and triadic rela-tionship of organization, human, and technological resource in the context of ser-vices, aiming to comprehend and manage the effects of introducing SST for the purpose of automating and augmenting services.
Across a total of four empirical and theoretical research papers, various contribu-tions for scholars and practitioners are made. First, findings expose a lack of full integration of SST and persisting challenges on all levels—technological, organi-zational, individual, and external. Second, SST needs to be incorporated at the in-tersection of worker and consumer for hybrid service delivery enabling automa-tion and augmentation. Third, SST requires organizations to handle accountability and responsibility of self-services and provide adequate education of users. Finally, this research has provided some specific insights for the healthcare and financial sector, as well as some general insights for services and professional services at large. Though more research will be needed, this work contributes to existing management and service research, enables a bridging of perspectives, and seeks to provide guidance and awareness of this recent and evolving phenomenon.publishedVersio
NiFe co-doped TiO₂ as a high-performance bifunctional photocatalyst for enhanced oxygen evolution and reduction reactions in efficient zinc-air battery systems
Full text linkThis study underscores the significant influence of Ni and Fe transition metal doping, as well as NiFe co-doping, on enhancing the properties of TiO2 to address the critical challenges in developing high-performance photo-assisted Zn-air batteries, particularly the need for improved light absorption, charge carrier separation, and catalytic efficiency. The doping process notably enhances light absorption and charge carrier separation, while the reduction in TiO2 crystallite size increases the surface area and shortens charge carrier diffusion paths, thereby minimizing recombination rates and improving photocatalytic efficiency. Moreover, the higher redox potentials of Ni and Fe oxidation states relative to TiO2's conduction band enable them to function as efficient electron acceptors, stabilizing charge carriers and accelerating reduction reactions. Electrochemical analysis reveals that NiFe-doped TiO2 exhibits superior conductivity and reduced charge transfer resistance compared to its single-element-doped counterparts, facilitating faster reaction kinetics. For OER, the overpotential decreases from 307 mV to 221 mV, while for ORR, illumination improves the half-wave potential to 0.65 V and increases the diffusion-plateau current density from 3.96 mA/cm2 to 4.6 mA/cm2. Battery performance testing demonstrates that under light irradiation, the charging potential is reduced to 1.63–1.66 V, and the discharge voltage is stabilized at 1.56–1.60 V, resulting in a round-trip efficiency of 96.34 %, compared to 77.59 % under dark conditions. These performance metrics approach the theoretical redox potential of 1.64 V, outperforming the capabilities of the state-of-the-art catalysts for photo-assisted Zn-air systems. Overall, this work establishes NiFe-doped TiO2 as a highly effective bifunctional photocatalyst, highlighting its potential to optimize oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) processes, thereby contributing to advancements in sustainable energy storage technologies.publishedVersio
Exploring nursing students’ learning experiences within tripartite meetings in nursing home clinical placements: a qualitative study using video-stimulated recall interviews
Full text linkBackground: Nursing students’ clinical learning is premised on experiences in clinical placements in nurse education, with the processes and outcomes of tripartite meetings among the student, nurse preceptor and teacher being central components. The tripartite meetings form the basis and framework for stakeholders’ dialogue and collaboration and have the central purpose of facilitating student learning and development and assessing the students’ achievement against predetermined learning outcomes for the placement period. Students’ experiences with tripartite meetings seems to be an underexplored field, and therefore this study aimed to explore first-year nursing students’ learning experiences within tripartite clinical placement meetings in nursing homes.
Design and methods: A qualitative explorative and participatory approach was adopted in this study, using the video-stimulated interview method “stimulated recall— dialog and reflection”. This method is based on video recordings with subsequent interviews, where video excerpts were used to support reflection and dialogue. Twentyone video-stimulated recall interviews were conducted with first-year nursing students (n = 7) to explore their learning experiences within the tripartite meetings.
Findings: Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke. Four themes were identified: (1) the importance of structure and preparedness; (2) supportive relations and dialogue essential for learning; (3) a possibility to create a common learning focus; and (4) assessment needs to be comprehensive and performance focused.
Conclusions: This study highlights that tripartite meetings can be an excellent forum to support the nursing students’ learning process in their clinical placements. Still, consistent and systematic approaches to clinical placement supervision and assessment need to be developed continuously. Therefore, the study’s findings suggest that targeted efforts are warranted to optimise and enhance the learning potential offered in tripartite meetings in clinical education, such as paying a greater attention to the start-up conversation and facilitating comprehensive supervisory and assessment content in the meetings.submittedVersio
Anskaffelse av EPJ i kommunal helsesektor
Full text linkDenne studien undersøker hvilke faktorer som påvirker anskaffelsen av elektroniske pasientjournalsystemer (EPJ) i den norske kommunale helsesektoren. Det er et økende behov for digitalisering i helse- og omsorgstjenestene, samtidig som kommuner ofte mangler ressurser og kompetanse til å implementere komplekse teknologianskaffelser, som er årsaken til denne studien. Det ble utført en kvalitativ casestudie på én enkeltkommune og et interkommunalt samarbeid for å finne suksessfaktorer og barrierer. Åtte dybdeintervjuer ble gjennomført med nøkkelpersoner i anskaffelsesprosessene.
Funnene viser at faktorer som tydelig ledelsesforankring, dedikert prosjektledelse, tverrfaglig engasjement og effektiv kommunikasjon er avgjørende for å lykkes. Flere kommuner håndterer problemer ved å bruke eksterne konsulenter eller samarbeide regionalt på grunn av samtidige regulatoriske forhold knyttet til offentlige anskaffelsesregler, personvern og juridiske rammer. Teknologiske krav som interoperabilitet, brukervennlighet og datamigrering ser ut til å være utfordrende, spesielt i tilfeller der eksisterende systemer enten er proprietære eller ikke oppfyller nasjonale standarder.
Studien viser at en helhetlig tilnærming som tar hensyn til organisasjon, teknologi og regler er nødvendig for en vellykket anskaffelse. Kommuner som oppnår suksess ønsker å starte tidlig, engasjere sluttbrukere, samarbeide med andre kommuner og forankre prosessene både politisk og administrativt. Resultatene underbygges av en omfattende litteraturgjennomgang som identifiserer kjente problemer internasjonalt og viser at mange av de norske erfaringene gjenspeiler globale trender innen e-helse og offentlige anskaffelser.
Denne oppgaven gir innsikt som er relevant for beslutningstakere, prosjektledere og utviklere av EPJ-systemer, samt konkrete forslag til hvordan fremtidige anskaffelser kan utføres mer effektivt og med større sikkerhet. Samtidig viser studien at det er et større behov for nasjonal koordinering, opplæring og strategisk støtte, spesielt for små og mellomstore kommuner
Hydroelastic analysis of interconnected offshore floating photovoltaic floats
Full text linkFloating photovoltaic (FPV) concepts have recently emerged as a promising solution for sustainable energy generation, gaining increasing market interest. Despite their potential, FPV systems face significant design challenges related to cost-effectiveness and structural integrity. For FPV arrays in offshore conditions, the structural and hydrodynamic performance of interconnected modules under wave action is a critical consideration, yet research in this area remains limited. This numerical study focuses on the frequency-domain hydroelastic analysis of a novel FPV concept with semi-submersible floats and rope connections. Each float is simplified as a rectangular plate and modeled using the Mindlin plate theory. A hybrid boundary element-finite element method code is modified and verified to account for the connection stiffness between the floats. Subsequently, a case study is conducted for two and three interconnected plates in two orientations, considering realistic material properties for the connections. The analysis examines the bending moments, deformations, and stresses of the plates under various wave periods and headings. Additionally, the effect of connection stiffness on the responses of the floats is evaluated under varying wave periods. The findings indicate that softer connections mitigate adverse effects, and the differences in structural responses remain below 5% for connections with two material properties. While the system exhibits sensitivity to shorter wave periods, the maximum von Mises stress is well below the allowable yield stress. Overall, the hydroelastic response confirms the good structural integrity of the configurations. This study contributes to a fundamental understanding of modular floating systems under wave effects.publishedVersio