Social and Cultural Contexts of Alcohol Use: Influences in a Social-Ecological Framework.

Alcohol use and misuse account for 3.3 million deaths every year, or 6 percent of all deaths worldwide. The harmful effects of alcohol misuse are far reaching and range from individual health risks, morbidity, and mortality to consequences for family, friends, and the larger society. This article reviews a few of the cultural and social influences on alcohol use and places individual alcohol use within the contexts and environments where people live and interact. It includes a discussion of macrolevel factors, such as advertising and marketing, immigration and discrimination factors, and how neighborhoods, families, and peers influence alcohol use. Specifically, the article describes how social and cultural contexts influence alcohol use/misuse and then explores future directions for alcohol research

Bi-Modal Naive Set Theory

This paper describes a modal conception of sets, according to which sets are 'potential' with respect to their members. A modal theory is developed, which invokes a naive comprehension axiom schema, modified by adding 'forward looking' and 'backward looking' modal operators. We show that this 'bi-modal' naive set theory can prove modalized interpretations of several ZFC axioms, including the axiom of infinity. We also show that the theory is consistent by providing an S5 Kripke model. The paper concludes with some discussion of the nature of the modalities involved, drawing comparisons with noneism, the view that there are some non-existent objects

The Disorder of the Dining Table

Spatial practice should be about celebrating these acts of creativity, embracing unpredicted events and laying out possibilities for imagination. Instead of closing these down, we want to embrace such potential creativity, inviting people to explore space and place in unexpected ways

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationWe prove that abelian subgroups of the outer automorphism group of a free group are quasi-isometrically embedded. Our proof uses recent developments in the theory of train track maps by Feighn-Handel. As an application, we prove the rank conjecture for Out(Fn). Then, in joint work with Radhika Gupta, we show that an outer automorphism acts loxodromically on the cyclic splitting complex if and only if it has a filling lamination and no generic leaf of the lamination is carried by a vertex group of a cyclic splitting. This is a direct analog for the cyclic splitting complex of Handel and Mosher's theorem on loxodromics for the free splitting complex. As a step towards proving that all of the loxodromics for this complex are WPD elements, we show that such outer automorphisms have virtually cyclic centralizers

Big Data Visualities

Make sense of abstract Big Data numbers by creating concrete, static or kinetic images/visualities which communicate or translate the meaning of the numbers to a human scale of understanding. The subject of the visualities should be created in each student’s artist voice, with the freedom and empowerment to express their own social, economic, political and ecological concerns so his/her work has personal meaning and strength of concern. Employ art hand skills in 21st century postmodern art by using Big Data to illustrate interdisciplinary social justice concerns in visualities, created to move a viewer to action.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cstae_resource_high_school/1003/thumbnail.jp

Mother-infant close body contact and maternal wellbeing: Exploring current literature and the feasibility of a sling study

Worldwide, a significant proportion of women experience symptoms of postnatal depression following childbirth. There is a need for low-cost, low-intensity early interventions to reduce symptoms of postnatal depression and support mothers’ well-being. Section One of this thesis describes a scoping review, which aimed to map out current literature regarding the impact of close body contact interventions (e.g. Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) or Skin-to-Skin Contact (SSC)) upon maternal psychological outcomes (e.g. mental health, parental self-efficacy, responsiveness, etc.). Section Two presents a feasibility study. This study explored the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a randomised experimental study which examines the impact of providing free baby sling hire and sling-based support upon maternal mental health. The primary aim of this feasibility study was to gather information useful for estimating study parameters (recruitment rates, attrition, etc.) for a future, definitive, Randomised Control Trial