Teledentistry: An Innovative Workforce Model for Dental Hygienists

Objective/Aims: This review of literature seeks to explore teledentistry as an alternative dental hygiene workforce model that places a dental hygienist in the role of the mid-level practitioner as part of a digitally-connected oral healthcare team. It will also emphasize the innovative methods of teledentistry giving better health care delivery to diverse populations. Methods: The review of literature analyzed the conclusions and discussions of primary and secondary scholarly articles from PubMed, Google Scholar, Embase, and CINAHL. Specific key terms included teledentistry, telehealth, teleconsultation, dental hygiene, dentistry, workforce model, health care delivery. Articles included in this review were published within the five last years. Results: Multiple scholarly articles were compiled together to emphasize the importance of technology-centered dental health care for patients who were unable to travel long distances to retrieve the care they were seeking, Key limitations the research often indicated include geographic, socioeconomic barriers or distance. Conclusion: The teledentistry-assisted model presents one way to answer the call to expand overall access to oral healthcare. The comparison of articles supported the efficiency and cost-effectiveness method of teledentistry in comparison to face to face consultations. Teledentistry is especially beneficial to addressing the access to care issue particularly populations in rural areas and even penitentiary institutions.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/denh_student/1025/thumbnail.jp

S-Ketamine as an Anti Depressant in a Rodent Spinal Cord Contusion Model

In addition to the physical effects, spinal cord injury (SCI) also impacts quality of life and psychological wellbeing. Compared to the rate of 8.6% in the general population, the incidence of major depressive disorder (MDD) ranges from 11 to 24% in SCI patients (Krause et al., 2000). Currently, depression after SCI is treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but these drugs have side effects that include attenuation of functional recovery after SCI (Coyle et al., 2015). S-Ketamine is a novel drug that has shown potential as an antidepressant, but has not been assessed following SCI. To address this, we used a battery of established behavioral tests (sucrose preference, forced swim, open-field activity, social exploration, and burrowing tasks) to assess depression in a rodent SCI model. Subjects were acclimated to the behavioral tasks and baseline scores were collected two days before a moderate contusion injury. Twenty-four hours later, subjects were given an injection of 0, 5, 10, or 20 mg/kg S-ketamine (i.p.). Depression was re-assessed on days 2, 9-10, and 19-21 post-injury. To characterize subjects as depressed or not-depressed, initial analyses focused on data collected on days 9-11 and 19-21 post-injury, after any potential antidepressant effects of S-ketamine should have dissipated. Using cluster analyses, we found that 13 out of 32 subjects (41%) displayed depression-like behaviors (decreased sucrose preference and open-field activity). Next, we examined the effects of S-ketamine. Analyzing data collected on day 2 post-injury, and within the window for S-ketamine’s efficacy, we found that 20 mg/kg ketamine increased social behavior, relative to all other dose groups. Importantly, depressed subjects treated with 20 mg/kg S-ketamine showed the highest level of social interaction 24 hours after administration. These data suggest that S-ketamine may be an effective antidepressant after SCI. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the molecular mechanisms mediating these effects and to optimize administration schedules

NEW IMAGING CAPABILITIES FOR MATERIALS ENABLED BY THE ELECTRON MICROSCOPE PIXEL ARRAY DETECTOR (EMPAD)

Transmission electron microscopy is a ubiquitous tool for materials and biological characterization from the micron to atomic scales. While the most common use of transmission electron microscopy is to determine atomic-scale structures, from the protein signatures of Alzheimer’s disease to the arrangement of atoms within a transistor, the scattered electron beam encodes a wealth of information about the structure, chemistry, electrical, optical, and magnetic properties of matter. Conventional electron detectors, however, discard much of this information. A next frontier of atomic scale characterization of matter will be to detect, analyze, and utilize these new scattering signals. Here, a new generation of direct imaging detectors have already enabled pioneering work for cryo-electron microscopy to solve structures of biomolecules, giving us an atomic-scale view into the intricate workings of life and winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017. To go beyond traditional electron microscopy techniques, new detectors must also be developed for diffraction imaging. During my PhD at Cornell, I developed and co-invented the Electron Microscope Pixel Array Detector (EMPAD), a fast, highly efficient “universal” detector for the electron microscope that is designed to re-capture and harness this missing information. The EMPAD is poised to have broad scientific and technological impact: we have licensed the EMPAD design to FEI, a subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Moreover, in the two years since the first paper was published demonstrating the use of the EMPAD, initial studies applying the EMPAD to various materials and biological systems have demonstrated its broad, cross-disciplinary impact. In my dissertation, I will talk about: previous works on diffraction imaging and STEM diffraction detectors available in the field (Chapter 1), the capabilities of the EMPAD (Chapter 2), the EMPAD’s use for imaging magnetic fields and magnetic phases in FeGe thin films (Chapter 3), and new physics from ferroelectric polarization vortices (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5, I will discuss the future works that can be done with EMPAD. In fact, it is extremely encouraging to know that the imaging examples described in this thesis only represent a small fraction of the potential impact the EMPAD can achieve for the field of electron microscopy

S-Ketamine as an Anti Depressant in a Rodent Spinal Cord Contusion Model

In addition to the physical effects, spinal cord injury (SCI) also impacts quality of life and psychological wellbeing. Compared to the rate of 8.6% in the general population, the incidence of major depressive disorder (MDD) ranges from 11 to 24% in SCI patients (Krause et al., 2000). Currently, depression after SCI is treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but these drugs have side effects that include attenuation of functional recovery after SCI (Coyle et al., 2015). S-Ketamine is a novel drug that has shown potential as an antidepressant, but has not been assessed following SCI. To address this, we used a battery of established behavioral tests (sucrose preference, forced swim, open-field activity, social exploration, and burrowing tasks) to assess depression in a rodent SCI model. Subjects were acclimated to the behavioral tasks and baseline scores were collected two days before a moderate contusion injury. Twenty-four hours later, subjects were given an injection of 0, 5, 10, or 20 mg/kg S-ketamine (i.p.). Depression was re-assessed on days 2, 9-10, and 19-21 post-injury. To characterize subjects as depressed or not-depressed, initial analyses focused on data collected on days 9-11 and 19-21 post-injury, after any potential antidepressant effects of S-ketamine should have dissipated. Using cluster analyses, we found that 13 out of 32 subjects (41%) displayed depression-like behaviors (decreased sucrose preference and open-field activity). Next, we examined the effects of S-ketamine. Analyzing data collected on day 2 post-injury, and within the window for S-ketamine’s efficacy, we found that 20 mg/kg ketamine increased social behavior, relative to all other dose groups. Importantly, depressed subjects treated with 20 mg/kg S-ketamine showed the highest level of social interaction 24 hours after administration. These data suggest that S-ketamine may be an effective antidepressant after SCI. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the molecular mechanisms mediating these effects and to optimize administration schedules

An Exploration of Experiences that Influence Occupational Therapy Students\u27 Motivations to Pursue Occupational Therapy as a Career

Occupational therapy (OT) is a client-centered healthcare profession that uses therapeutic activities to increase an individual’s, group’s, or population\u27s participation in meaningful activities, otherwise known as occupations. The general underlying factors that motivate one’s decision to choose this career path is well established within the existing literature. However, research into the experiences of students working alongside an occupational therapist (OT) prior currently faces a significant gap. The aim of this study is to identify and understand what first-hand experiences of OT brought OT students to pursue a career in occupational therapy. Through the lens of narrative inquiry, participants were given a narrative prompt to describe their first-hand experiences with occupational therapy. Following the participants’ completion of a narrative prompt, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four pre-OT students from Dominican University of California and one entry level doctorate student from University of St. Augustine, Miami. Wilcock’s (1999) Doing, Being and Becoming was referenced as a guided theory during the thematic analysis as it reflects on “how a dynamic balance between doing and being is central to healthy living and how becoming whatever a person is best fitted to become is dependent on both” (1999, p.2). Through the utilization of these themes, the findings reveal that initial OT observation hours are highly influential towards one’s decision to pursue OT as a career. Additionally, these findings suggest a need for required hours to include reflection and adequate hands-on experiences as provided by OT departments within colleges and universities

Target Personification Influences the Positive Emotional Link Between Generating and Implementing Malevolently Creative Ideas

Research on malevolent creativity has rarely linked the generation of harmful ideas with their implementation (i.e., malevolent innovation). To explain why people might act upon their malevolently creative ideas, we drew on affective events theory. Specifically, given evidence that aggressive and creative thought events can elicit positive emotions, we argued that generating new and harmful ideas can evoke positive emotional states that make malevolent innovation a more desirable course of action. We first tested our mediational pathway in two studies with different malevolent creativity tasks. Finding only partial support for our predictions in Study 1 (N = 126), but full support in Study 2 (N = 296), we reflected on our study tasks and suspected that our mixed results may have occurred because the target of ideas in Study 2 embodied more human qualities than in Study 1. Thus, we integrated theory on target personification to see if assigning personhood to a target moderated the malevolent creativity-innovation pathway. We tested our updated model in Study 3 (N = 214) and found that the indirect effect of malevolent creativity on the desire to implement ideas (through positive emotions) was indeed conditional upon individuals’ personification of a target. Plain Language Summary Little research has examined why and when people might act upon their malevolently creative (i.e., new and harmful) ideas. Given evidence that aggression and creativity can both arouse positive emotional states, it may be possible that forming malevolently creative ideas can make people feel more positively about implementing them later on. However, our research findings paint a more nuanced picture, suggesting that the emotional link between generating and implementing malevolently creative ideas only occurs when people see their targets as more human-like (i.e., they can assign personhood to their targets)

An Overview of Cyanobacteria Harmful Algal Bloom (CyanoHAB) Issues in Freshwater Ecosystems

This chapter will present an overview of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) and biotic and abiotic factors, as well as various aspects associated with these worldwide ecological bursts. The exact causes of the cyanoHABs are still not well defined, but eutrophication and climate change (temperature increase, light intensity variation, etc.) are the two assumed main factors that may promote the proliferation and expansion of cyanobacterial blooms. However, these premises need to be profoundly investigated as the optimal combination of all factors such as increased nutrient loading, physiological characteristics of cyanobacterial species, and climate effects which could lead to the blooming pattern will require robust modeling approaches to predict the phenomena. Negative issues associated with cyanoHABs are diverse including the toxic products (cyanotoxins) released by certain taxa which can damage the health of humans and animal habitats around the related watershed as well as generate a huge water quality problem for aquatic industries