Analytic Work Research Articles

Finding Appropriate Serious Games in Vocational Education and Training: A Conceptual Approach

Stakeholders in vocational training are required to provide appropriate learning opportunities that can be used to develop the needed skills induced by technological change and thereto affected changes in the type of jobs, skill needs, activities, and other economic effects. In light of this, serious games have enormous poten­tial, as they can simulate complex real-life situations without disrupting operations, but in a playful and motivat­ing way, and with adaption to the individual needs of the users. This paper explores the question, how to find appropriate serious games matching the needs for a specific job and skill level. Within the research project “Serious Games for Vocational Education and Training” funded by the German Ministry for Science and Educa­tion, the Serious Games-Information Center (SG-IC, a classical web-based information system in form of a portal) and its under­lying Serious Games Metadata Format (SG-MDF), as semantic basis for the description and retrieval of serious games, is enhanced according to the characteristics and needs in the field of vocational education and training (VET). Educational stakeholders can use the search engine to identify personalized game-based learning oppor­tunities for their individual target groups. The identification of appropriate educational games is based on classifications of occupations, and skill levels on the learning side, and metadata information for the games on the gaming side (i.e. target user group, game genre, learning topics and additional keywords). The paper moti­vates the use of metadata and classification systems and presents the results of a literature search and overview of established classification systems of occupations, with a focus on Germany, but with correspondence to inter­national systems. Based on that analytic work, an application profile ‘vocational education and training’ as an added ‘variant’ of the SG-MDF has been elaborated and integrated within the SG-IC as search engine for educational games for vocational training. Hereto serious games are matched with a database of occupational fields as defined by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, and main activity as defined by the microcensus, the largest annual household survey of official statistics in Germany.

Hoarding and the Substance of Kinship

While much has been written in popular media about the apparent antisociality of hoarders, many people with parents who exhibit hoarding tendencies describe intense (though not always positive or desirable) forms of kin relationality that grow in and around domestic hoards. Based on fieldwork with hoarding intervention specialists, interviews with people who identify as "Adult Children of Hoarders" (ACoHs), and a review of recent memoirs on the topic, this article examines how domestic hoards enable and restrict the interactions, habits, and movements of those who live within them, and in turn, how kin relations get made and troubled in relation to the hoard. I consider the hoard as kinship substance in its own right, and in doing so, reflect upon both the variable meanings of—and the analytic work performed by—the term "substance" in kinship studies over the past four decades. In showing how familial relationships come to be shaped and mediated by the hoard (hoard-as-substance), and even beyond this, how the hoard may itself come to be imagined as kin (hoard-as-kin), this article offers a counterpoint to studies that overemphasize the positive aspects and affects of kinship and relatedness.

A numerical approach to the calculation of the Alfvén continuum in the presence of magnetic islands

A numerical approach is devised to calculate the shear Alfvén continuum inside and outside magnetic islands in cylindrical and stellarator plasmas. Equations for an appropriate set of coordinates and the arising equations for the continuum are derived and implemented in the CONTI code. An experiment-oriented representation of the results is chosen to allow a radial localization of the modes and a comparison of different magnetic configurations. Comparison is made with results of earlier analytic work for validation. Agreement is good but more details of the spectrum, such as the generation of island induced gaps inside and outside the separatrix, are found. While the code is easily usable and can be applied to any magnetic equilibrium accessible with VMEC, the calculations are plagued with convergence issues close to the separatrix. A calculation for a realistic W7-X equilibrium with islands is done where the island width is estimated with the HINT code.

Thinking the unthinkable: trauma, defence and early states of mind in the work of Alessandra Cavalli.

From my experience of working with her as the editor of many of her papers, this paper seeks to elucidate the late Alessandra Cavalli's clinical and theoretical approach to analytic work through a study of the editorial process her papers went through on their way to publication. This highlights a consistent theoretical synthesis integrating Klein, Fordham, Bion, Matte-Blanco and Ferrari in an archetypal structure that was firmly rooted in Jung. This synthesis, closely interwoven into Alessandra's clinical work but never fully articulated, was primarily concerned with the impact of trauma on the developing self and how this could be ameliorated through the analytic process, especially through the transformation of raw primitive affect into representational form via the containment provided by an emotionally attuned other.

Defeat, Entrapment, and Hopelessness: Clarifying Interrelationships between Suicidogenic Constructs.

Psychological theories of suicide posit conceptually similar constructs related to the development of suicidal thinking. These constructs often evince high-magnitude interrelationships across studies. Within these theories, defeat, entrapment and hopelessness standout as conceptually and quantitatively similar. Theoretical improvements may be facilitated through clarifying the subscale and item-level similarities among these constructs. Factor analytic and phenomenological work has demonstrated equivocal evidence for a distinction between defeat and entrapment; hopelessness is not typically analyzed together with defeat and entrapment despite evidence of large-magnitude interrelationships. This study explored the interrelationships among the foregoing constructs within a sample of undergraduate students (N = 344) from two universities within the Southeastern United States. Participants, oversampled for lifetime history of suicidal ideation and attempts, completed an online cross-sectional survey assessing defeat, entrapment, hopelessness and SI. Exploratory factor and parallel analyses demonstrated support for a one factor solution when analyzed at subscale level of the three measures as well as when all items of the three measures were analyzed together. Ad hoc exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) bifactor results evinced support for the existence of a single, general factor at the item level. Item level communalities and bifactor fit indices suggest that hopelessness may be somewhat distinct from defeat and entrapment. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed in the context of study limitations.

Practicing Psychoanalysis at the Intersection Of Covid-19, The Murder of George Floyd, and Trump’s Presidency: Reflections from a Brown Analyst

The author focuses on some of her experiences as the COVID-19 pandemic began and her retrospective understanding of those experiences. She describes having drawn on memories from her early life to arrive at this understanding; she discusses how this process has allowed her to move past certain countertransferential obstacles in her clinical work during the early days of the pandemic and to listen to her patients with more optimal analytic attentiveness. The author also discusses concurrent sociopolitical events, such as Donald Trump’s presidency and George Floyd’s murder, and how these impacted her analytic work. Illustrative clinical vignettes are presented.

A Conversation between Estelle Shane and Joye Weisel-Barth

ABSTRACT Estelle Shane is a distinguished psychoanalyst, who has honored, served, and contributed to the profession. During my training and early years as an analyst, she was my teacher and mentor, and over time she has become my close colleague and friend. I admire and love her balanced temperament, her ever growing mind and heart, her genuine kindness and unique shine, but I’m also occasionally exasperated – as friends are – at some of her patterned foibles. Despite a long and rich life, Estelle still wants so much; she’s greedy for more – more work, writing, ideas, articles, books, movies, theater, and interesting and challenging patients, colleagues and friends. She wants more intense intellectual and emotional experience, more intellectual and emotional understanding – More Life and More Time. And she tries to schedule it all in. Even during Covid sequestration, Estelle is at war with time. Therapy sessions, tea parties and coffee klatches, consultations, private conversations, editor meetings, writing lessons – all these continue online in her familiar pace and race, and Estelle logs in more ZOOM and FACETIME miles than anybody I know. In her pursuit of life and her battle with time, she overcommits herself, is often overwhelmed by her own chosen obligations, and frequently must extricate herself from too many overlapping dates. How many times has Estelle canceled an appointment because she has inadvertently scheduled two other people in my time slot? Exasperating, but by now also inspiring; that is, even though I have to share her, I love how large and curious and hungry for life she is. So now she and I are going to have a conversation about minds: what they are in all their eccentric patterns and shifts, how we understand our own and the other’s, how we use them, and how they function in analytic work. Estelle’s theories are well documented in her writings, and so I want to go beyond her theories to talk about what she actually does with her patients and how she has come to think about analytic practice.

A Conversation between Ted Jacobs and Wendy Olesker

ABSTRACT Ted has been teacher, colleague, and friend to me throughout my professional life. There was something about Ted’s person that resonated with me. I felt his presence when I began training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where I did my internship and clinical fellowship, and again as I was going through training at NYPSI. Once I graduated, I had the good fortune of being invited to a study group with Ted, Charlie Brenner, and many other senior analysts. I was most impressed with his ways of thinking, his humanity, which came across vividly in his work and in his responses to others. He had an openness and dedication to finding ways to reach each individual patient. I especially admired his emphasis on turning to the evidence from the patient, and his focus on really helping his patients with what was central to them, not having to stick to analytic rules. He was courageous in his willingness to present his careful analytic work when his focus on countertransference was not considered appropriate at the time, with much backlash from others. In terms of Ted’s importance to psychoanalysis, starting in the 70ʹs, he focused in on an area of psychoanalysis that was quite undeveloped at the time – the analyst’s use of his self, except for a few strong voices from the Kleinians (Heiman, 1950, Racker, 1953), though of course many others later. Ted could see the limitation of focusing only on the transference, omitting countertransference. He focused on “what’s happening between us” before any concept of the “analytic third” or “co construction” had been born. So much focus was on the intrapsychic – the only focus of a “true” analyst, at a time when the interpersonal was viewed as “nonanalytic.” He brought his analytic lens, studying the analytic data in the countertransference, to the benefit of the psychoanalytic community, a focus quite different from relational analysis and interpersonal analysis. His influence on my own work was powerful. The shared background of training in a place with many gifted and talented people, who all were seriously involved in trying to learn analysis and apply the work to patients, but with an openness to new ideas, to valuing the data from the patient above loyalty to a particular theory, the lens on one’s own feelings, thoughts, fantasies, attitudes to facilitate the most full understanding of the patient, all have enriched my understanding and appreciation of the analytic process.

Average Operation Time of Bundle Protocol in Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networks

Performance analysis of the Bundle Protocol (BP) in Delay/ disruption-Tolerant Networks (DTN) has gained much interest. The analytic work of the average operation time (AOT) in BP, for different channel conditions and system parameters, though critical to understanding performance and designing system, is still incomplete. Existing results, such as the average file delivery time (AFDT), provide reasonably close estimates in some cases but exhibit large discrepancies in other cases. In this paper, we provide a holistic probabilistic analysis of the BP process, particularly in the number of error bundles and the position of the last error bundle in each and the last rounds of transmission. We provide, for the first time, an exact solution for the AOT of the BP process. The derivation works for both symmetric and asymmetric channels and is in general for any given maximum number of transmissions rounds. When the unlimited number of transmission rounds is considered, AOT becomes AFDT. The results are further utilized to select the optimal bundle size that gives the minimum file delivery time. Validation via simulations and comparison with existing work are also provided.

Population genetics of transposable element load: A mechanistic account of observed overdispersion

In an empirical analysis of transposable element (TE) abundance within natural populations of Mimulus guttatus and Drosophila melanogaster, we found a surprisingly high variance of TE count (e.g., variance-to-mean ratio on the order of 10 to 300). To obtain insight regarding the evolutionary genetic mechanisms that underlie the overdispersed population distributions of TE abundance, we developed a mathematical model of TE population genetics that includes the dynamics of element proliferation and purifying selection on TE load. The modeling approach begins with a master equation for a birth-death process and extends the predictions of the classical theory of TE dynamics in several ways. In particular, moment-based analyses of population distributions of TE load reveal that overdispersion is likely to arise via copy-and-paste proliferation dynamics, especially when the elementary processes of proliferation and excision are approximately balanced. Parameter studies and analytic work confirm this result and further suggest that overdispersed population distributions of TE abundance are probably not a consequence of purifying selection on total element load.

A Puzzle with Missing Pieces: Explaining the Effectiveness of World Bank Development Projects

Abstract The identification of key determinants of aid effectiveness is a long-standing question in the development community. This paper reviews the literature on aid effectiveness at the project level and then extends the inquiry in a variety of dimensions with new data on World Bank investment project financing. It confirms that the country institutional setting and quality of project supervision are associated with project success, as identified previously. However, many aspects of the development project cycle, especially project design, have been difficult to measure and therefore under-investigated. The paper finds that project design, as proxied by the estimated value added of design staff, the presence of prior analytic work, and other specially collected measures, is a significant predictor of ultimate project success. These factors generally grow in predictive importance as the income level of the country rises. The results also indicate that a key determinant of the staff's contribution is their experience with previous World Bank projects, but not other characteristics such as age, education, or country location. Key inputs to the project production process associated with subsequent performance are not captured in routine data systems, although it is feasible to do so. Further, the conceptualization and measurement of the success of project-based aid should be revisited by evaluative bodies to reflect a project's theorized contribution to development outcomes.

Tracing networked images of gendered entrepreneurship online

AbstractThis paper explores the importance of visualization online and the gendering of entrepreneurship in contemporary neoliberal times. We investigate how understandings of entrepreneurship are shaped by online imagery. Applying visual critical methodology, we trace and analyze 248 commercial images. Our analytic work explicates the visual construction of male and female entrepreneurs, leading us to further examine appearance, (in)action, and interaction aesthetics. Through detailed visual analysis, we unpack masculinities and femininities to theorize the resulting gendering of entrepreneurial aesthetics. In doing so, we consider the role of image networks in the reproduction of neoliberal ideals.

Over-Exposed Self-Correction: Practices for Managing Competence and Morality

ABSTRACT When repairing a problem in their talk, speakers sometimes do more than simply correct an error, extending the self-correction segment to comment on, repeat, apologize, and/or reject the error. We call this “over-exposed self-correction.” In over-exposing the error, speakers may manage (and reflexively construct) a range of attributional troubles that it has raised. We discuss how over-exposed self-correction can be used to: (a) remediate errors that might suggest the speaker’s incompetence; and (b) redress errors that may be heard as revealing relational “evils” (implicating inadequate other-attentiveness) or societal “evils” (conveying problematic social attitudes and prejudices). The article thus shows how conversation analytic work on repair can provide a platform for studying the emergence and management of socially and relationally charged issues in interaction. The data come from a diverse corpus of talk-in-interaction in American, British, and Australian English.

Concurrence on Nonconcurrence in Multiple-Baseline Designs: A Commentary on Slocum et al. (2022).

Slocum et al. (this issue) provide well-reasoned arguments for the use of nonconcurrent multiple baseline designs in behavior analytic work, despite historical preference for concurrent designs (i.e., simultaneous baseline initiation) and contemporary guidelines in related fields suggesting that nonconcurrent designs are insufficient for evaluating functional relations (What Works Clearinghouse, 2020). I provide a commentary, highlighting major contributions of this article and suggesting areas of further consideration. In sum, I agree with authors that researchers should avoid wholesale dismissal of nonconcurrent designs. I also agree that understanding how multiple-baseline designs control for and allow for detection of threats to internal validity is critical so that authors can apply the variation of the design that allows them to draw confident conclusions about relations between independent and dependent variables.

P‐121: CNN Based Edge Preserve Segmentation for FIB, TEM Image Analysis

As consumers are increasingly exposed to numerous products equipped with displays in everyday life, they are expecting more various types of displays. In order to meet this demands, it is required to improve rapid product development and secure stable production capacity, which causes analytic work on product to be intensely increasing. However, measurement of the product for Analysis Engineering is to be done by human power, which is costly and time consuming. With this kind of measuring process, measurement values may vary depending on the individual or by human error, which makes consistency of measurement difficult. So as to eliminate these simple repetitive tasks and to improve consistency of measurement, an automatic measuring system for structure analysis is required. In this paper, we propose the automatic measuring system and the model for the system.

Ferenczian Elasticity in the Analysis of an Adolescent.

Psychoanalytic work with adolescents poses a challenge for analysts who adhere to standard analytic technique as many adolescents who need analytic intervention resist such a structured approach to analysis. The author finds that elasticity of technique is currently widely used by analysts when working with this difficult age group even though they may be unaware that this is, in fact, a Ferenczian technique. Clinical examples are presented to illustrate how frequently the technique is used in cases of resistant, troubled youth. The author outlines an approach that is sensitive to these resistances and makes compromises in technique based on the principle that engaging a troubled youth in a therapeutic venture is preferable to refusing treatment based on the patient's not being able to adhere to standard analytic technique. In this sense, Ferenczi was an early herald of the type of contemporary analytic work that is practiced currently especially with a difficult population of patients.

Sociolinguistic upsets and people of color in social media performances

Abstract Particularly since the refugee “reception crisis” in 2015, Finland has started transforming into a more diverse and multicultural society. These societal changes have also been accompanied by sociolinguistic change, as well as language ideological debates and tensions, often manifesting in explicitly racist and xenophobic bursts of upset. In this article, our focus is on social media as a space where such societal and sociolinguistic upsets are articulated and re-worked. Drawing on recent sociolinguistic and discourse analytic work on transformative and critical popular cultural practices in social media, and studies on rap and belonging, we discuss how, in a mediatized society such as Finland, social media serve as a forum for antagonism and conflict, but also as a site for ‘talking back’. As our illustrative cases, we investigate two heteroglossic social media performances by entertainers and artists of color. In our analysis, we will show how these performances highlight and contest ideological notions of the way particular language resources are considered a key to Finnishness, as well as their role in the racialization and othering of people of color.

From Hopelessness and Despair to Hope and Recovery: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy as Effective Agent of Change in the Treatment of a Psychiatric Patient

In this paper we present the main features of a 10‐year, twice‐weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a female subject (Clare) who presented with severe depression, self‐harm and suicidality. Serious traumatic events in her upbringing led to the formation of a pathological defensive structure based on a rigid identification with the aggressor, used as a dysfunctional means of protecting her against the threat of severe anxiety and psychic annihilation. Although the prognosis appeared bleak, her motivation for greater self‐understanding, her resilience and her therapist's commitment to analytic work allowed for a strengthening of the therapeutic alliance. Gradually and painfully, Clare succeeded in recognizing the difference between her cruel primary figures and the figure of a caring and containing psychotherapist, which in turn allowed her a more robust internalization of a benign object. The change in the nature of the transference towards greater trust coincided with improvements in her life, in the quality of her interpersonal relationship and external functioning. Psychiatric medication was gradually withdrawn and Clare found a part‐time job. Improvements were maintained by follow‐up consultations. The positive outcome confirms that long‐term psychoanalytically oriented therapy is an effective approach for the treatment of subjects presenting with severe emotional difficulties.

Modeling the Combined Effect of Hepatitis B Infection and Heavy Alcohol Consumption on the Progression Dynamics of Liver Cirrhosis

Liver cirrhosis is the liver scarring in human body which causes the liver organ failure to function its regular activities effectively and normally. In this paper, we proposed and analyzed the combined effect of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and heavy alcohol consumption on the progression dynamics of liver cirrhosis. In order to study the progression dynamics of cirrhosis and to describe the effect of alcohol intake variation on a chronic hepatitis B patients a deterministic model and a logistic function are considered, respectively. The detailed proof of the positivity, boundedness, and biological feasibility of the proposed model is presented. The disease endemic equilibrium point and the existence of bifurcation were investigated in detail. We established and proved the existence theorems for forward and backward bifurcations, respectively. Finally, we performed large scale numerical simulations to verify the analytic work and the result of the numerical simulations reveal that heavy alcohol consumption significantly accelerates the progression of liver cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis B infected individuals.

Cosmos, Cosmetics, and Trauma

The clinical case I will present is intentionally without substantial theoretical references as it is meant to be a tribute entirely focused not only on Philip Bromberg’s thought, but also on his writing style and on the many emotions and much wisdom that are expressed in his texts, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. Briefly, I would like to pay an entirely personal tribute to Bromberg the analyst/poet whom I have known—not for long, but very intensely—whom I have loved very much, whom I miss, and who continues to inspire me every day in my analytic work. In this article, I also refer to an active mode of “knowing” patients that I have developed over the past twenty years, which consists of miming them—not in their presence—in the attempt to get in touch with what their bodies and expressive movements leave on my body. I have learned a great deal from this form of implicit relational knowing (as Daniel Stern would have called it) and I am glad to share it with the readers of this article. Finally, I would like to sincerely thank Velleda Ceccoli and Jean Petrucelli for giving me such a valuable opportunity to remember Philip Bromberg.