The landscape of cancer care is evolving and as a result nursing care continues to develop and respond to the changing needs of oncology patients and their families. There is a paucity of qualitative research examining the experience of being an oncology nurse on an inpatient unit. Therefore, a qualitative study using an interpretive phenomenological approach has been undertaken to discover the lived experience of being an oncology nurse. In-depth tape recorded interviews has been conducted with six oncology nurses who worked on two adult inpatient oncology units. Van Manen’s (1990) interpretive phenomenological approach has been used to analyze the data by subjecting the transcripts to an analysis both line by line and as a whole. The overarching theme of the interviews is: Investing to Make a Difference. The themes that reflect this overarching theme are: Caring for the Whole Person, Being an Advocate, Walking a Fine Line, and Feeling Like You are Part of Something Good. Oncology nurses provide care for their patients through a holistic lens that further enhances how they come to know their patients. Over time, relationships with patients and families develop and these nurses share that balancing the emotional aspects of their work is key in being able to continue to invest in their work and in these relationships. Their investment is further evident as oncology nurses continuously update their knowledge, for example, of treatment regimes, medication protocols, and as they champion their patients wishes and needs. As nurses develop their own identities as oncology nurses, they in turn enhance the team with their emerging skill and knowledge. These research findings serve to acknowledge the meaning of oncology nurses’ work and inform the profession’s understanding of what it means to be an oncology nurse.

A Contextualist Approach to Telehealth Innovations By Sunyoung Cho Abstract Healthcare is considered one of the most important social issues in the U.S. as well as in other societies with ever-increasing costs of medical service provision. The information-intensive nature of the healthcare industry and the perception of information technology (IT) as a way to ease up healthcare costs and improve quality have lead to increased use of and experiments with IT-based innovations. These activities present interesting research opportunities for IS researchers and they have led to an increasing body of knowledge on healthcare information systems. This research aims at contributing to this line of research by adopting a contextualist approach to examine the adoption, use, and further diffusion of telehealth innovations. A contextualist approach provides a particularly interesting and relevant perspective to study adoption and diffusion processes of healthcare innovations. The adopted contextualist approach is process-oriented, it applies multiple levels of analysis, and it accommodates different theoretical lenses to make sense of the two telehealth innovations under investigation. A key assumption is that innovations should be understood as ongoing processes of change, not just technologies, or isolated change events with clear boundaries. Healthcare innovations have in this view much broader connotations, including development of IT-based applications, their adoption and diffusion over time, and the interactions between many stakeholders and organizations that shape the innovation in a specific context. The contextualist approach suggested by Pettigrew is adopted as an overarching framework for multiple studies based on empirical investigation of two telehealth innovations; the main focus is on a telestroke innovation in the U.S. while a radiology innovation in Sweden serves as a complementary case. Each study is documented as an independent research publication with its own theoretical perspective and contributions. The overall contextualist approach and the related findings are then summarized across the individual studies. Telehealth innovations are particularly interesting examples of healthcare information systems. They leverage contemporary network infrastructures and interaction devices to allow provision of healthcare services, clinical information, and education over distance, thereby reducing the costs and improving the availability of medical services. The two telehealth innovations are investigated through in-depth case studies. This theses summary presents the theoretical background for the studies; it motivates and details how the qualitative case studies based on critical realist assumptions were designed and conducted; it outlines the resulting research publications; and it discusses the contributions of investigating telehealth innovations from a contextualist approach.

Karisma är ett fenomen som under lång tid väckt stort intresse och fascination bland människor, däribland mig själv. Däremot är begreppet aningen diffust och det har därför varit svårt att hitta en entydig definition av karisma. För att undersöka dimensionerna av karisma har jag i denna uppsats valt att undersöka karismans betydelse i dagens samhälle. Syftet med undersökningen har varit att undersöka hur fenomenet karisma som begrepp konstrueras i en bestämd social kontext i samhället idag, vilket jag har gjort genom att analysera självhjälpslitteratur i hur man ökar sin karismatiska utstrålning. De huvudsakliga frågeställningarna bakom denna undersökning omfattar bland annat hur karisma konstruerats i litteraturen, hur framställningen av karisma gett upphov till skapandet av subjekt samt att se om förändringar i samhället kommit att förändra betydelsen av karisma. Bakgrunden av undersökningen innefattar bland annat Max Webers definition av den ”genuina” karisman samt en rad andra teorier och undersökningar om karisma som försökt förklara fenomenets härkomst. Med bakgrund av detta har jag alltså studerat karisma ur ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv med hjälp av diskursanalys och funnit att de två självhjälpsböcker jag undersökt konstruerar karisma som ett multidimensionellt fenomen som alla individer har möjligheten att utveckla. Utöver denna upptäckt tyder resultaten från undersökningen även på att en decentralisering av makten i dagens samhälle har kommit att påverka hur karisma konstrueras idag. / Charisma has for long been the object for admiration and fascination among people, including myself. It has, however, been very difficult to settle for an appropriate definition of charisma since the nature of the phenomenon can be described as being quite abstract. I have in an attempt to explore the dimensions of charisma chosen to investigate its meaning in today’s society. The main goal with the investigation has been to see how the concept of charisma is constructed within a given social context, which in this case constitutes of self-help books on how to develop a charismatic personality. A few of the primary questions behind this investigation concerns how charisma is constructed within the literature, how the representation of charisma in the books leads to the development of subjects and to see whether changes within the society has contributed to a change in the meaning of charisma. The investigation is, among other things, based on Weber’s definition of the “genuine” charisma as well as several other theories and studies concerning charisma which have tried to deduce the origin of the subject. I have in relation to this analyzed charisma from the view of the social constructivist perspective, with the help of discourse analysis, and found that the two self-help books I have studied constructs charisma as a multidimensional phenomenon which everyone has the ability to develop. In addition to this discovery I also found that the result from the investigation indicates that a decentralization of power in today’s society has come to influence how charisma is constructed today. Title: What significance does charisma have in society today? – A study done from the social constructivist perspective concerning charisma in self-help literature. Charisma has for long been the object for admiration and fascination among people, including myself. It has, however, been very difficult to settle for an appropriate definition of charisma since the nature of the phenomenon can be described as being quite abstract. I have in an attempt to explore the dimensions of charisma chosen to investigate its meaning in today’s society. The main goal with the investigation has been to see how the concept of charisma is constructed within a given social context, which in this case constitutes of self-help books on how to develop a charismatic personality. A few of the primary questions behind this investigation concerns how charisma is constructed within the literature, how the representation of charisma in the books leads to the development of subjects and to see whether changes within the society has contributed to a change in the meaning of charisma. The investigation is, among other things, based on Weber’s definition of the “genuine” charisma as well as several other theories and studies concerning charisma which have tried to deduce the origin of the subject. I have in relation to this analyzed charisma from the view of the social constructivist perspective, with the help of discourse analysis, and found that the two self-help books I have studied constructs charisma as a multidimensional phenomenon which everyone has the ability to develop. In addition to this discovery I also found that the result from the investigation indicates that a decentralization of power in today’s society has come to influence how charisma is constructed today.

Taiwan, as an island country, should place future aspiration on the usages of ocean energy and marine resources, such as offshore wind power and deep ocean water. The sound development of marine services relies on a strong industry of maritime engineering. The perilous marine environment has posed the highest risk for all maritime civil engineering activities. It is therefore imperative to restrain the risk associated with current maritime work, other than just engineering technique itself. By doing so, the quality of maritime work can be assured, and as the improvement of overall engineering capability, Taiwan can compete worldwide in the maritime engineering industry. Maritime works have developed their own standard construction procedures. To mitigate risk of maritime works depend mainly on the domain experts¡¦ experience and know-how. However, problems appear when less experienced experts are available, or qualitative experience exists in a narrative form. It is therefore important to structure clearly an engineering risk factor relation, and quantify and control these risk factors. The proposed study will first collect and review related literatures, and then interview an expert from the designate maritime service company to establish the risk factors associated with offshore piping. Eventually a complete Bayesian network (BN) was formulated based on the cause-effect diagram, using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), and experts¡¦ experience was transformed into a set of prior and conditional probability to be embedded in the BN. The BN can clearly show that certain earlier operational factors affect final operational process deeply. Besides, the backward reasoning using the BN is possible to identify the factors causing a project failure.

The public sector in Sweden has in recent decades undergone a large change due to market and liberalism impact. This change has meant that marketing communication and its concepts have been adopted by administrative authorities. In this thesis, we used governmentality, social constructivism and an interpretive perspective to examine the staff at the County Administrative Board in Kalmar County and their experiences and opinions of the concepts ”customer” and ”trademark”. The study was designed as a case study with qualitative interviews. The study showed that the experiences can be divided into three categories: those that are positive, those who are worried and see risks as well as those who believe the concepts are just empty words. We also discovered that there was a discrepancy between the management's view of the market influenced communication, which was positive and more liberal, and the rest of the staff which emphasized the traditional bureaucratic rhetoric.

As Canada becomes increasingly multicultural, counsellors along with other mental health professionals are challenged to find ways to meet the varying needs of an increasingly multiracial, multi-religious, and multicultural population (En-Nabut, 2007; Lambert, 2008; Qasqas & Jerry, 2014). Gaining knowledge about counselling Muslim women is essential as the Muslim community is growing throughout Canada. Muslim women face various challenges as they endeavor to respond to changing social conditions as an underserved minority and religious community (En-Nabut, 2007). A basic interpretive qualitative research design (Merriam, 2002) was utilized to investigate the dynamics of working with Muslim women in a therapeutic setting. Next, ways of being more culturally informed in working with this population, from the perspective of female Muslim mental health professionals were explored. Interviews were conducted with five female Muslim mental health professionals. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to analyze patterns in the data. Four themes emerged: (a) seeking help is not easy: challenges faced by Muslim women clients, (b) lack of awareness: fear of the unknown, (c) participants’ suggested solution: psychoeducation and cross-cultural training, and (d) the building blocks of client-counsellor relationship: trust and communication. Findings are described alongside implications for counselling practice and future research.

Prior studies have shown that the information and cultural product flow is dominantly one direction from large/wealthy markets to smaller markets. Extending this position through the underlying research, it is expected that the audiences in the United States, one of the largest cultural product exporters, may have shaped certain perceptions on the scarcity of Korean films in their domestic film market. By studying the users in an internet film discussion community, this research aims to provide useful ideas about how American audiences perceive Korean films. This qualitative case study conducted a content analysis of the actual postings by the participants on the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) as they discuss the Korean movie "OldBoy." Then, in-depth interviews with volunteered users were performed.Foreign films, such as Asian films like OldBoy, seem to especially satisfy their needs of alternatives due to these films' scarcity in U.S. market. In other words,participating in community discussion is a means of finding new foreign films, and watching new foreign films works as a way of contributing to their film viewing communities. Also, contributing the community enhances their perceived prestige as film enthusiasts. The investigator started this research from the assumption that the scarcity of Korean films made U.S. audiences ethnocentric. However, study observed that the scarcity of Korean films and the foreignness of this film is treated as one of the most attractive aspects to this subset of viewers. This study has shown that by contributing to and participating in message board discussions, the viewers built a film viewing community in the IMDb website. The discussions with others in the film viewing community helped them build and enhance their prestige as serious film-goers as they built an interpretive community. Tracking the posts and respondents' answers, the investigator could predict that they are building exchange networks in their foreign film viewing community, and this process may influence to their future foreign film viewing.

The media play a major role in every part of American society by distributing content that has value to individuals, and a National Football League (NFL) sports fan club is no different. This study examines how members of a Kansas City Chiefs' fan club use media to stay connected to their team and socialize with fellow members. Social identification theory explains that when an individual comes together with one or more individuals with like-minded interests, they form social bonds. Their shared interests allow them to disseminate Chiefs' information through content gathered from media usage. To understand how the Chiefs' fans use media, the author conducted research at a Kansas City Chiefs' sports club at a local bar in a large Southeastern city in the United States. The researcher used observation, participation, and interviews to collect information on the media usage of fan club members. The results find that the majority of members logged on to KCStar.com and KCChiefs.com when they wanted to read about the team from sources that lived in the Kansas City Region. When the members wanted to follow the games live, one person listened to play-by-play on their cellular phone, while others followed Internet updates on sports Web sites, or watched the games on television with the other fan club members.

Although research has shown that mental-health stigma can impact an individual’s well-being, little is known about who perpetrates suicide stigma. Moreover, anticipation of stigma could impact whether individuals disclose their suicidal experiences; yet, little is known about suicide disclosure and how family members’ reactions play a role in subsequent mental health. To address these gaps, three studies were designed to examine how stigma, suicide disclosure, and family reaction impact subsequent mental health of attempt survivors and those who have experience suicidal ideation. Individuals who had previously experienced suicidal ideation or a previous suicide attempt (n = 156) were recruited through the American Association of Suicidology. Results indicated that attempt survivors were more likely to experience stigma from non-mental health providers and social network members than from mental health providers. A hierarchical standard regression model including both source and type of stigma accounted for more variance (ΔR2 = .08) in depression symptomology than a model with only type of stigma. Results from respondents who had experienced a nonfatal suicide attempt in the past 10 years (n = 74) indicated that family reaction mediated the relationship between suicide disclosure and depression symptoms (B = -4.83, 95% BCa CI [-11.67, -1.33]). Higher rates of disclosure statistically predicted more positive family reactions (B = 4.81, p = .013) and more positive family reactions statistically predicted less severe depression symptoms (B = -1.00, p = .002). Interpretive phenomenological techniques were used to analyze follow-up interviews (n = 40) with attempt survivors. Individuals’ reactions to suicide disclosure offered insight for attempt survivors’ regarding their place in society. More specifically, reactions impacted the degrees to which attempt survivors felt that they belonged within their social group and whether they were a burden to their loved ones. Given these results, the potential contributions of family scientists to the field of suicidology are examined. Specifically, researchers have primarily examined suicide as an individual phenomenon; family scientists are ideally suited for examining the family’s role after an attempt occurs. However, family science must also make the transition to viewing suicide as a family experience.

This thesis addresses the revitalization of the former Nova Scotia Textiles Limited mill in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada. Windsor is a small town that lies along the confluence of the Avon and St. Croix River shores, off the Bay of Fundy, and is the gateway to the Annapolis Valley region. This abandoned textile mill serves as a monument in the landscape while also holding a special part in the identity of the town’s historic industrial past. This thesis proposes to establish a meaningful connection between the textile mill and the community, as well as with the phenomenal Fundy landscape by means of a regional interpretive center. Commercial, institutional and recreational facilities ensure year-round stability for the site. A context-based approach links the architectural intervention to the dynamic layers of building, site and tidal landscape beyond.