Marijuana Legislation: Identifying the Impact on the Oral Healthcare Provider

Objectives/Aims: Since the mid-2000s, the United States has seen a surge in legislation involving the legalization of marijuana, both recreationally and medicinally. The relaxed laws translated into an increase of marijuana consumption and thereby a potential increase in the number of patients a provider will see that are cannabis users. The purpose of this review is to illustrate how the providers begin to see pathologies related to cannabis use more frequently, and how they will need to be prepared for ways this can be addressed. Additionally, oral healthcare providers will face ethical dilemmas and legal challenges when treating patients and their ability to give informed consent. Methods: Research reviewed in this paper was compiled from scholarly articles and peer-reviewed journals, including PubMed and CINAHL, published within the last five years. Studies were analyzed on the impact legalization and decriminalization laws have had on marijuana use. Additional research reviewed numerous pathologies related to marijuana use in the dental cavity. Results: Based on current proposals, it is expected that 40 states will legalize marijuana by the end of 2020. Studies conducted in states such as Oregon, Colorado and Alaska have shown an increase in marijuana usage since legalization has occurred. Research reviewed showed multiple conditions related to marijuana use. Periodontitis, xerostomia, oral cancer, and staining are several of the associated pathologies. Conclusion: Research suggests an anticipated increase of marijuana users in states that will soon pass legalization. Studies have also shown that there is a higher prevalence of pathologies of the oral cavity in cannabis users versus non cannabis users. The oral healthcare provider will treat more pathologies related to cannabis use and deal with the legal challenges presented to them surrounding informed consent.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/denh_student/1016/thumbnail.jp

Devotional reading and dissolving the self: a critical reading of the late medieval Scottish Legendary using Kristevan theory

The Scottish Legendary is a fourteenth century collection of saints’ lives in Older Scots. The prologue describes the lives as ‘merroure’ (mirror) to readers from which ‘men ma ensample ta’ (people may take example). Thus, the Legendary sets out to reveal how the reader is (mirror) thereby moving her to wish to become how she should be (exemplarity). This dissertation argues that, rather than encouraging devotion to saints along purely dogmatic lines, the Legendary transforms the reader’s selfhood by engaging her affectively, i.e. on an emotional and somatic level. By provoking the reader affectively, the text puts the reader into what Julia Kristeva has described as a ‘semiotic state’ which harks back to the reader’s or listener’s pre-cultural, pre-subjective self (Kristeva, 1984). Thus, the text disrupts the reader’s conception of herself as a complete, hermetic subjectivity, thereby dissolving the boundaries of the reader’s self. The Legendary most powerfully infiltrates the reader’s sense of self along these lines in the moments in which female saints’ bodies are tortured and dismembered. These scenes foreground the permeability of human flesh as well as its powerful influence over selfhood. Such images of abjection are, in Kristeva’s words, ‘opposed to I’; by confronting the reader with the disintegration of subjectivity in abjection, the text incites the reader to likewise experience herself as abject, i.e. disintegrable and permeable (Kristeva 1982). As I shall demonstrate, Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of the formation of the self offers a fruitful framework for understanding the processes of self-knowledge through reading that these saints’ lives inspire

Geometry of fully augmented links in doubled 3-manifolds

Classical fully augmented links have explicit hyperbolic geometry, and have diagrams on the 2-sphere in the 3-sphere. We generalise to construct fully augmented links projected to the reflection surface of any 3-manifold obtained by doubling a compact 3-manifold. When the resulting manifolds are hyperbolic, we find bounds on their cusp shapes and volumes. Note these links include virtual fully augmented links, and thus our bounds apply to such links when they are hyperbolic.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Art Therapy In Schools: A Group Mosaic Mural Project

This paper provides a descriptive overview of an applied arts-based group project that took place with students at an elementary school. The group of students worked towards the construction of a mosaic mural with assistance from two art therapy interns who acted as facilitators for the group. As a clinical case review, the paper aims to offer a descriptive overview of the therapeutic process of the group. An additional objective of the paper is to document the mural group process in order to inform school professionals about potential benefits of such a group as well as provide art therapists with a detailed resource for potential future art therapy group projects in schools

Seize Your Solar Power: Strategic Communication to Encourage Support of Residential Solar in North Carolina

Installing residential solar is one way that North Carolina (NC) residents can save money on their energy bills, reduce their contribution to climate change, and contribute to energy resilience in the state. Despite these benefits, most NC residents do not have residential solar. People may not have solar for many reasons such as a lack of motivation, high costs, not having a home suitable for solar, homeowner association rules, and a lack of trustworthy information about installing solar. North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA) supports a transition to clean energy technologies like residential solar. It can strategically communicate with residents to help them understand the benefits of solar and how to overcome barriers to getting solar. The organization can encourage its audience members to consider getting solar or to at least support solar in their communities even if they are not in the position to get solar themselves. The purpose of this thesis project is to understand the factors that influence adoption of residential solar in NC and to create a communications plan that takes these factors into account to help NCSEA increase residential solar. Elements of the plan include the target audience, primary and secondary messages, objectives, goals, strategies, tactics, channels, evaluation measures, and sample communications materials.Master of Art

How North Carolina Local Governments Respond to and Communicate about Climate Change

As human-caused climate change threatens North Carolina municipalities and counties, local governments can play a key role in reducing municipalities’ and counties’ contributions to climate change and increasing their resilience to climate threats. This research study aimed to understand how North Carolina local governments communicate with residents about their responses to climate change. The study involved conducting 12 qualitative interviews with sustainability employees in North Carolina local governments. Results were coded and analyzed to find several themes about the ways participants said local governments communicated about climate responses, received resident input, and implemented successful climate initiatives with public engagement. The majority of participants said they framed climate initiatives to connect with what matters to residents, which is a strategy that aligns with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change communications recommendations. Misconceptions about climate change that participants heard residents express tended to be about climate responses rather than climate science, which is in contrast to literature about climate change as a polarizing topic. While participants commonly identified funding, metrics, and partnerships as factors for successful climate initiatives involving public engagement, COVID-19 emerged as a barrier for communicating and engaging with residents. The strategies and factors that led to successful initiatives and communication as well as barriers to responding to climate change can inform future local government responses to climate change as well as future research on this topic.Bachelor of Art

Are Patterns of Smoking Cessation and Related Behaviours Associated with Socioeconomic Status? An Analysis of Data from the International Tobacco Control Four Country Survey

Considerable socioeconomic disparities have been identified for smoking and cessation: lower socioeconomic status (SES) groups have higher rates of tobacco use, are less likely to successfully quit, and may also be less likely to intend or attempt to quit. However, results are inconsistent for some quitting-related outcomes, and little is known about how socioeconomic disparities may vary across countries and over time. This study examined the extent to which SES was associated with smoking cessation and related constructs among representative samples of smokers in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia, using data from the first five waves (2002-2006) of the ITC Four Country Survey (35 532 observations from 16 458 respondents). Generalized estimating equations modeling was used to examine whether education and income were related to intentions to quit (any, and within the next six months), incidence of quit attempts, smoking abstinence (for at least one, six and 12 months), and reduction in daily cigarette consumption by at least half. Potential differences in the associations over time and across countries were also considered. In addition, logistic regression modeling examined associations between education and income, reasons for quitting, and use of cessation assistance, using a cross-sectional sample of the most recent survey wave. Respondents with higher education were more likely to intend to quit, have made a quit attempt, and be abstinent for at least one and six months, and those with higher income were more likely to intend to quit and be abstinent for at least one month. Associations were stable throughout the time period under study. Country differences were observed in quit intentions: UK and US respondents were less likely to intend to quit than Australians and Canadians. Also, UK respondents were least likely to attempt to quit overall, but those that did attempt were more likely to be abstinent for at least one and six months. Socioeconomic and between-country differences were also identified in the cross-sectional analyses of use and access to cessation assistance and reasons for quitting. The results suggest that socioeconomic disparities exist at multiple stages in the path to smoking cessation