In the 1949 play The Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller depicts a man that goes through life without ever really understanding his own place in it. Willy Loman spends his life chasing a dream yet lacks the ability to achieve it. Instead of trying to learn about himself, his abilities, and find goals more suited for him, he stubbornly insists on chasing grand and misinterpreted dreams woven by others. He commits his life to fantasies and coerces his family to follow him on a course towards failure and tragedy. This thesis seeks to analyze the behavior of the lead character of the play with the help of the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan. The analysis seeks to explain how Willy’s behavior affects the lives of his family members as well as his own, with a focus on the language of the play.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) incidence rates are increasing among the U.S. population and represent substantial acute and chronic care costs. A confounding factor in TBI treatment is the incidence rates of concomitant mental health disorders including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Clinical data establish that the prevalence of any of these 3 diagnoses complicates the treatment of TBI regardless of whether the diagnosis was pre-existing or occurred because of the TBI, such that prognosis and recovery are negatively impacted. Despite this evidence, psychological assessment is not a first line step in the approach to TBI. The purpose of this research was to assess the prevalence of psychological screening among TBI patients for depression, anxiety, and PTSD to enable conclusions about the current standard of care in TBI management. Meta-analysis of peer reviewed journals on TBI management was used to determine if there was considerable evidence to support that depression, anxiety, and PTSD were being addressed as the standard of care in TBI management. Mean analysis of literature search results established that there was not considerable evidence to support a conclusion that depression, anxiety, and PTSD assessment were standard of care in TBI management. Among the recommendations resulting from this finding were for additional studies on TBI points of care to determine how mental health is currently being managed among TBI patients, and for a change in current TBI treatment protocols to incorporate mental health assessment as part of overall TBI management. If these, and the remaining recommendations, were implemented, it was affirmed that these would have a positive social impact resulting in improved patient outcomes, decreased healthcare costs, and better healthcare delivery for TBI patients.

This paper consists of a focused, formal, and iconographic analysis of a unique Late Archaic bronze hand mirror said to originate in Magna Graecia, now in the Getty Museum. Of particular interest is the way the object fuses and juxtaposes two semantically dense and interrelated devices from the ancient Greek world: the mirror and the severed head of the Medusa (gorgoneion). While gorgoneia are generally encountered as ornaments on Greek mirrors, the Getty example is the only extant case in which Medusa’s head occupies the entire backside of the mirror, effectively functioning as a Janus-faced counterpart to the user’s face reflected in the disc. Scholars tend to explain the significance of gorgoneia on objects like the Getty mirror with reference to apotropaic and/or humorous effects. Yet Fowler proposes that the mirror’s incorporation of the gorgoneion may be appreciated on deeper conceptual and phenomenological levels: as a visual “comment” on the nature of the image (representational and reflected) and of (female) beauty and ugliness, which is accomplished by, and experienced through, using the object. Close examination of the Getty mirror thus offers critical insights into the complex interplay between gender, aesthetics, image-making, and visual experience in ancient Greek culture.

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In this thesis we compute the Frobenius manifold of the Landau-Ginzburg A-model (FJRW theory) for certain polynomials. Specifically, our computations apply to polynomials that are sums of An and Dn singularities, paired with the corresponding maximal symmetry group. In particular this computation applies to several K3 surfaces. We compute the necessary correlators using reconstruction, the concavity axiom, and new techniques. We also compute the Frobenius manifold of the D3 singularity.

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Bakgrund: För de som överlever en stroke drabbas många av kraftiga funktionsnedsättningar. Nedsatt motorisk funktion är en av de vanligaste funktionsnedsättningarna. Spegelterapi är en relativt ny behandlingsmetod som visats ha god effekt på att återfå funktion. Det finns en kunskapslucka inom området och evidensen kring spegelterapi behöver stärkas. Där spelar litteraturöversikter en väsentlig roll för att uppdatera om det rådande evidensläget samt optimera framtida forskning.  Syfte: Att undersöka evidensläget för effekterna av spegelterapi på motorisk funktion i övre extremitet hos personer med hemipares efter stroke i ett subakut och kroniskt stadium.  Metod: Studien genomfördes med en litteraturstudie där randomiserade kontrollerade studier inkluderades. Sökningar genomfördes i databaserna PubMed och Cinahl. Artiklarnas enskilda risk för snedvridning granskades enligt PEDro-scale och resultatets sammanvägda tillförlitlighet granskades enligt “Bedömning tillförlitlighet systematisk översikt”. Resultat: Totalt inkluderades nio artiklar där alla bedömdes ha låg risk för snedvridning enligt PEDro-scale. Av de nio visade fem artiklar en signifikant skillnad till interventionsgruppens fördel. Den sammanvägda bedömningen gällande effekten av spegelterapi på motorisk funktion i övre extremitet visade på en låg (++) tillförlitlighet enligt “Bedömning tillförlitlighet systematisk översikt”. Konklusion: Fler än hälften av studierna visade att spegelterapi har effekt och är en säker rehabiliteringsmetod för personer med stroke och nedsatt motorisk funktion i övre extremitet. Ytterligare forskning av hög kvalitet behövs för att säkert kunna styrka dess effektivitet. / Background: For those who survive a stroke, many suffer from severe disabilities. Impaired motor function function is one of the most common disabilities. Mirror therapy is a relatively new treatment method that has been shown to be effective in regaining function. There is a knowledge gap in this area, and the evidence regarding mirror therapy needs to be strengthened. Literature reviews play an essential role in updating the current state of evidence and optimizing future research. Purpose: To investigate the evidence regarding the effects of mirror therapy on motor function in the upper extremities of individuals with hemiparesis following stroke in a subacute and chronic stage. Method: The study was conducted through a literature review, including randomized controlled trials. Searches were conducted in the PubMed and Cinahl databases. The individual risk of bias of the articles was assessed using the PEDro scale, and the combined reliability of the results was assessed using the “Bedömning tillförlitlighet systematisk översikt”. Results: In total, nine articles were included, all assessed to have low risk of bias according to the PEDro scale. Of these nine, five articles demonstrated a significant advantage for the intervention group. The combined assessment regarding the effect of mirror therapy on upper extremity motor function showed low (++) reliability according to the "Bedömning tillförlitlighet systematisk översikt" Conclusion: More than half of the studies showed that mirror therapy is effective and a safe rehabilitation method for individuals with stroke and impaired motor function in the upper extremity. Further high-quality research is needed to definitively confirm its effectiveness.