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

“They would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase”: SGBs’ perceptions of the employment of male FP teachers

Efforts to recruit and retain men in the Foundation Phase (FP) teaching and learning have been a global phenomenon. In South Africa, School Governing Bodies (SGBs) are tasked with the responsibility to diversify schooling by recommending the employment of teachers in all educational phases to the Department of Basic Education (DBE). Two and a half decades since the dawn of democracy in South Africa, the teaching of children in the early years is still dominated by women. This study explores how SGBs in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa approach the employment of male teachers in FP. Using a qualitative research approach, a semi-structured focus group discussion was adopted to generate data with five SGB parent component members. The data was analysed thematically using a feminist post-structural lens. The study found that SGBs’ employment of male FP teachers is based on societal constructions of gender over employment policy guidelines. The SGB members showed a lack of policy understanding and at times misinterpreted the policies. These findings have implications for education policymakers and teacher training institutions in facilitating the smooth incorporation of males in FP teaching

INVESTIGATING TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS INTO VIETNAMESE

Advertising slogans can be seen everywhere in this world, from smaller cities to bigger ones and as more and more businesses have been run, a plethora of brands have been introduced. However, many companies in the world now have found their way out of their host countries and wish to do business in other potential countries. When they do this, they need language assistance to advertise their products. Due to this language importance to promote sales, this study aimed to explore twelve advertising slogans related to skin, hair protection, food, beverages and other common brands that are prevalent in Vietnam to see how the English slogans of the brands were translated into Vietnamese. The authors used the translation perspectives proposed by Nida (1991) to help direct the analysis. The result uncovered that the majority of the translated texts did not apply the philological and linguistic perspectives, but instead they were translated based on the Skopos theory, meaning they translated the slogans to purposefully persuade people to purchase the products. This study ignored the communicative perspective as the authors could not record extra-linguistic features such as sounds to insert the effect on buyers. Some proposed suggestions for further studies were also included.   Article visualizations

Survey of Pain Curriculum Among Entry-Level Occupational Therapy Programs in the United States

Occupational therapy practitioners address pain management across settings, populations, and the lifespan. Occupational therapy practitioners offer unique contributions to pain management through biopsychosocial approaches, targeting supported self-management and occupational engagement. Comprehensive pain education is necessary to prepare entry-level occupational therapy practitioners to address pain in practice, yet no standards exist in entry-level occupational therapy education. This survey describes the status of pain-related education in entry-level occupational therapy programs across the United States. A total of 41 entry-level occupational therapy programs completed the survey. Total instructional time for pain content was reported to be an average of 9.68 hours, ranging from 1 to 30 hours, indicating significant variability. Average lecture (4.88 hours) and lab-based (5.05 hours) time devoted to pain content were similar. More time was devoted to teaching pain interventions (4.91 hours) than pain assessments (2.82 hours). Most programs integrated pain content throughout the curriculum (73%). One program utilized a standardized pain curriculum (International Association for the Study of Pain Occupational Therapy Curriculum). Open-ended questions revealed a breadth of evidence-based resources, pain assessments, and interventions covering all domains of the biopsychosocial model of pain. The majority of faculty (61%) felt their current amount of pain education was insufficient, citing the need for increased time and educational activities for pain education across all program years. Given the essential and unique role of occupational therapy practitioners in pain management, improving pain education and practitioner competence is an important consideration across entry-level occupational therapy education. Further discussion is needed regarding educational standards and entry-level occupational therapy curricula relating to pain management

Rethinking constructions of difference : lessons from Lesotho’s chief Mohlomi’s activism against the gendering of witchcraft

Discrimination according to gender has been in practice in communities globally since time immemorial. This discrimination has infiltrated all spheres of life including the naming, shaming, blaming, and persecution of deviant people as witches. The phenomenon of witchcraft has historically been negatively skewed towards women, with women’s gender and sexual diversity being used against them in accusations of witchcraft. In some modern-day African communities, gender and sexual diversity are still regarded as witchcraft or a result of bewitching. While activism against witchcraft has gathered momentum across Africa, it is worth noting that in Lesotho, such activism began in the precolonial era through the leadership of Chief Mohlomi. In this paper, we explore the understandings and experiences of constructions of difference as witchcraft among the Basotho of Lesotho. Using a qualitative research approach, we employed life-history narratives and focus group discussions to generate data with 10 Basotho men and women aged 70–93 years. We used sankofa theory to frame our analysis of the data, which was done thematically. Drawing on the ethnographic data, we discuss lessons regarding constructions of difference as witchcraft, and Chief Mohlomi’s (1720–1815) activism against the discrimination of those labelled as witches. The findings reveal that divergent gender and sexual characteristics and identities were used in labelling certain individuals as witches and unexplainable phenomena as witchcraft. However, the findings also show that Chief Mohlomi set in motion a spirited activism against the persecution of divergent people through his teachings, which led to transformed views on gender and sexual diversity among the Basotho. These findings have implications for an education that embraces diversity in all spheres of life to promote inclusive and sustainable communities.am2023Philosoph

Understanding adolescent sexuality in the memories of four female Basotho teachers : an auto/biographical study.

Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.This study explores the memories of adolescent sexual experiences of female Basotho science teachers in order to understand the influence of such experiences on their approach and handling of sexuality, HIV and AIDS education. My argument is that Basotho teachers arc facing a challenge of integrating sexuality, HIV and AIDS education into their teaching largely because of their lived sexuality experiences, which have been shaped institutionally and through societal expectations. An eclectic theoretical approach, with emphasis on feminism and involving Dewey's philosophies of experience informed the study. A qualitative research design was used. Data was produced through one-on-one semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and memory work with three participants. I was a participant-researcher and hence contributed my experiences to the study. Field notes and journal entries were used to supplement the data. The storied lives of the women teachers have been shared in their own words including the researcher's autobiography. The findings show that the adolescent sexual experiences of the women teachers have shaped their teacher selves within sexuality, HIV and AIDS classrooms. Some of their experiences have been educative while others have been mis -educative, and thus have led to some of the teachers not being able to handle sexuality education at all, while others only handle it partially. Several stumbling blocks have been identified that impede the effective facilitation of sexuality education in Lesotho classrooms. These include religion, traditional practices, lack of training and societal constructions of what is and is not permissible in schools. Challenging and disturbing these stumbling blocks and breaking the silence around sexuality issues among Basotho societies could be helpful in ensuring that 8asotho teachers gain the skill s necessary for them to facilitate the teaching of sexuality, HIV and AIDS education. Thus, Basotho children would be given the knowledge necessary for them to make informed decisions regarding their sexual behaviour

In-Context Learning User Simulators for Task-Oriented Dialog Systems

This paper presents a novel application of large language models in user simulation for task-oriented dialog systems, specifically focusing on an in-context learning approach. By harnessing the power of these models, the proposed approach generates diverse utterances based on user goals and limited dialog examples. Unlike traditional simulators, this method eliminates the need for labor-intensive rule definition or extensive annotated data, making it more efficient and accessible. Additionally, an error analysis of the interaction between the user simulator and dialog system uncovers common mistakes, providing valuable insights into areas that require improvement. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/telepathylabsai/prompt-based-user-simulator

Investigating teachers’ and graduates’ remarks on the translation of English modals into Vietnamese provided by Google Translate

Due to demands of using English for work, study and entertainment, more Vietnamese people have tended to use Google Translate to help translate English into Vietnamese and vice versa. This tool has become popular in these situations. However, can this tool translate English modal verbs expressing social functions into Vietnamese? To obtain the data for the study, the authors used the English source extracted from the grammar course book by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) which was fed into Google Translate for their Vietnamese versions. The source was related to making requests, giving advice, expressing potential realization, expressing desire, giving invitation and making preference. The study also recruited 11 experienced Vietnamese-speaking teachers of English and 21 Vietnamese-speaking graduates of English to give their remark on these translation texts which were sent to them via email and the social media platform Zalo. The findings showed that Google Translate was able to keep the intended meanings of many social functions through using the English modal verbs when transferring these functional texts into Vietnamese. The results also uncovered that most of the teachers and graduates agreed with these translated texts provided by Google Translate. Besides, both groups had a quite common point of view that Google Translate were unable to translate the past forms of the English modal verbs for more indirect or polite intention when they were transferred into Vietnamese. Some recommendations to help improve English- Vietnamese translation provided by Google Translate were also included

“Girls need to behave like girls you know”: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools

Sexuality education, as a component within the Life Orientation (LO) programme in South African schools, is intended to provide young people with knowledge and skills to make informed choices about their sexuality, their own health and that of others. Key to the programme are outcomes relating to power, power relations and gender. In this paper, we apply a critical gender lens to explore the ways in which the teaching of sexuality education engages with larger goals of gender justice. The paper draws from a number of ethnographic studies conducted at 12 South African schools. We focus here on the data collected from focus group discussions with learners, and semi-structured interviews with individual learners, principals and Life Orientation (LO) teachers. The paper highlights the complexities of having gender justice as a central goal of LO sexuality education. Teaching sexuality education is reported to contradict dominant community values and norms. Although some principals and school authorities support gender equity and problematize hegemonic masculinities, learners experience sexuality education as upholding normative gender roles and male power, rather than challenging it. Teachers rely heavily on cautionary messages that put more responsibility for reproductive health on female learners, and use didactic, authoritative pedagogical techniques, which do not acknowledge young people’s experience nor facilitate their sexual agency. These complexities need to be foregrounded and worked with systematically if the goal of gender justice within LO is to be realised.IBS