Innovations that Address Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Geographic Barriers to Preventive Oral Health Care

This report focuses on nine oral health innovations that integrate service delivery and workforce models in order to reduce or eliminate socioeconomic, geographic, and cultural barriers to care. Two additional reports in this series describe the remaining programs that provide care in non-dental settings and care to young children. Although the programs are diverse in their approaches as well as in the specific characteristics of the communities they serve, a common factor among them is the implementation of multiple strategies to increase the number of children from low-income families who access preventive care, and also to engage families and communities in investing in and prioritizing oral health. For low-income children and their families, the barriers that must be addressed to increase access to preventive oral health care are numerous. For example, even children covered by public insurance programs face a shortage of dentists that accept Medicaid and who specialize in pediatric dentistry.(Guay, 2004).The effects of poverty intersect with other barriers such as living in remote geographic areas and community-wide history of poor access to dental care in populations such as recent immigrants . Overcoming these barriers requires creative strategies that address transportation barriers; establish welcoming environments for oral health care; and are linguistically and culturally relevant. Each of these nine programs is based on such strategies, including:-Expanding the dental workforce through training new types of providers or adding new providers to their workforce to increase reach and community presence;-Implementing new strategies to increase the cost-effectiveness of care so that more oral health care services are available and accessible;-Providing training and technical assistance that increase opportunities for and competence in delivering oral health education and care to children;-Developing creative service delivery models that address transportation and cultural barriers as well as the fear and stigma associated with dental care that may arise in communities with historically poor access.The findings from the EAs of these programs are synthesized to highlight diverse and innovative strategies for overcoming barriers to access that have potential for rigorous evaluation that could emerge as best practices. If proven effective, these innovative program elements could then be disseminated and replicated to increase access for populations in need of preventive oral health care

Phylogeny and evolution of anomalous roots in Daviesia (Fabaceae : Mirbelieae)

The phylogeny of the Australian legume genus Daviesia was estimated using sequences of the internal transcribed spacers of nuclear ribosomal DNA. Partial congruence was found with previous analyses using morphology, including strong support for monophyly of the genus and for a sister group relationship between the clade D. pachyloma and the rest of the genus. A previously unplaced bird-pollinated species, anceps + D. D. epiphyllum, was well supported as sister to the only other bird-pollinated species in the genus, D. speciosa, indicating a single origin of bird pollination in their common ancestor. Other morphological groups within Daviesia were not supported and require reassessment. A strong and previously unreported sister clade of Daviesia consists of the two monotypic genera Erichsenia and Viminaria. These share phyllode-like leaves and indehiscent fruits. The evolutionary history of cord roots, which have anomalous secondary thickening, was explored using parsimony. Cord roots are limited to three separate clades but have a complex history involving a small number of gains (most likely 0-3) and losses (0-5). The anomalous structure of cord roots ( adventitious vascular strands embedded in a parenchymatous matrix) may facilitate nutrient storage, and the roots may be contractile. Both functions may be related to a postfire resprouting adaptation. Alternatively, cord roots may be an adaptation to the low-nutrient lateritic soils of Western Australia. However, tests for association between root type, soil type, and growth habit were equivocal, depending on whether the variables were treated as phylogenetically dependent (insignificant) or independent ( significant)

Dental Professionals in Non-Dental Settings

This report focuses on nine oral health innovations seeking to increase access to preventive oral health care in nondental settings. Two additional reports in this series describe the remaining programs that provide care in dental settings and care to young children. The nine innovations described here integrate service delivery and workforce models in order to reduce or eliminate socioeconomic, geographic, and cultural barriers to care. Although the programs are diverse in their approaches as well as in the specific characteristics of the communities they serve, a common factor among them is the implementation of multiple strategies to increase the number of children from low-income families who access preventive care, and also to engage families and communities in investing in and prioritizing oral health. For low-income children and their families, the barriers that must be addressed to increase access to preventive oral health care are numerous. For example, even children covered by public insurance programs face a shortage of dentists that accept Medicaid and who specialize in pediatric dentistry. The effects of poverty intersect with other barriers such as living in remote geographic areas and having a community-wide history of poor access to dental care in populations such as recent immigrants. Overcoming these barriers requires creative strategies that address transportation barriers, establish welcoming environments for oral health care, and are linguistically and culturally relevant. Each of these nine programs is based on such strategies, including:-Expanding the dental workforce through training new types of providers or adding new providers to the workforce toincrease reach and community presence;-Implementing new strategies to increase the cost-effectiveness of care so that more oral health care services are available and accessible;-Providing training and technical assistance that increase opportunities for and competence in delivering oral health education and care to children;-Offering oral health care services in existing, familiar community venues such as schools, Head Start programs and senior centers;-Developing creative service delivery models that address transportation and cultural barriers as well as the fear and stigma associated with dental care that may arise in communities with historically poor access.The findings from the EAs of these programs are synthesized to highlight diverse and innovative strategies for overcoming barriers to access. These strategies have potential for rigorous evaluation and could emerge as best practices. If proven effective, these innovative program elements could then be disseminated and replicated to increase access for populations in need of preventive oral health care

Retrieving fin-de-siècle women poets: the transformative myths, fragments and voices of Webster, Blind and Levy

The critical recuperation of late nineteenth-century women poets, most still waiting in the margins of the literary canon, has owed significantly to the renovated interest and study of the poetical works of Augusta Webster, Mathilde Blind and Amy Levy (1860-90) by the postmodern reader. One of the reasons for this ‘salvage’ may be that they represent and embody the profound and extraordinary changes encompassing the British fin-de-siècle, in which the transition from the Victorians to the Moderns implied the transformation or reconfiguration of certain myths or (hi)stories and the critical re-use or ‘recycling’ of major literary forms. If, for Webster and Blind, involvement in radical politics (namely, feminism and socialism) certainly implied a stance as outsiders, Blind and Levy were even more set apart by their foreignness, with Levy’s different religion and sexuality increasing the distance even further. With recourse to close reading and cultural critique, this paper will analyse how these three women poets re-use fragments (‘verbal ruins’) of national and international history, as well as classic myth, in order to question and transform the images and representations of man and woman in their respective connections with the world. It will demonstrate that while Webster’s poetry (Dramatic Studies of 1866 and Portraits of 1870) is firmly grounded on social demands and the exploration and dramatization of the nature of female experience, Blind’s epic and dramatic verse (The Ascent of Man of 1889 and Dramas in Miniature of 1891) creates new myths of human destiny, reclaiming the Poet’s role as the singer of the age’s scientific deeds, and Levy’s lyrics (Xantippe of 1881 and A Minor Poet of 1884) signal the New Woman poet’s role as victim of the pressures of emancipation. With the support of critics as Isobel Armstrong, Helen Groth and Angela Leighton, the paper will furthermore discuss the way in which these poets explore the selves that women inherit and create and the languages that re-define them, often through the expansive, public forms of dramatic and narrative verse; through these hybrid and fragmentary forms, Webster, Blind and Levy literally give voice to unspeakable feelings and situations, in which the anomalous and marginal are made central.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Evolutionary consequences of shifts to bird-pollination in the Australian pea-flowered legumes (Mirbelieae and Bossiaeeae)

BACKGROUND Interactions with pollinators are proposed to be one of the major drivers of diversity in angiosperms. Specialised interactions with pollinators can lead to specialised floral traits, which collectively are known as a pollination syndrome. While it is thought that specialisation to a pollinator can lead to either an increase in diversity or in some cases a dead end, it is not well understood how transitions among specialised pollinators contribute to changes in diversity. Here, we use evolutionary trait reconstruction of bee-pollination and bird-pollination syndromes in Australian egg-and-bacon peas (Mirbelieae and Bossiaeeae) to test whether transitions between pollination syndromes is correlated with changes in species diversity. We also test for directionality in transitions that might be caused by selection by pollinators or by an evolutionary ratchet in which reversals to the original pollination syndrome are not possible. RESULTS Trait reconstructions of Australian egg-and-bacon peas suggest that bee-pollination syndrome is the ancestral form and that there has been replicated evolution of bird-pollination syndromes. Reconstructions indicate potential reversals from bird- to bee-pollination syndromes but this is not consistent with morphology. Species diversity of bird-pollination syndrome clades is lower than that of their bee-pollination syndrome sisters.We estimated the earliest transitions from bee- to bird-pollination syndrome occurred between 30.8 Ma and 10.4 Ma. Geographical structuring of pollination syndromes was found; there were fewer bird-pollination species in the Australian southeast temperate region compared to other regions of Australia. CONCLUSIONS A consistent decrease in diversification rate coincident with switches to bird pollination might be explained if greater dispersal by bird pollinators results in higher levels of connectivity among populations and reduced chances of allopatric speciation.The earliest transitions overlap with the early diversification of Australian honeyeaters - the major lineage of pollinating birds in Australia. Our findings are consistent with the idea that environment and availability of pollinators are important in the evolution of pollination syndromes. Changes in flower traits as a result of transitions to bird-pollination syndrome might also limit reversals to a bee-pollination syndrome.Funding was provided by the Australian Research Council (grant number: DP0985473)

Stronger Constraints on the Evolution of the MBH−σ∗M_{\rm{BH}}-\sigma_* Relation up to z∼0.6z\sim0.6

We revisit the possibility of redshift evolution in the $M_{\rm{BH}}-\sigma_*$ relation with a sample of 22 Seyfert 1 galaxies with black holes (BHs) in the mass range $10^{6.3}-10^{8.3}~M_\odot$ and redshift range $0.03<z<0.57$ with spectra obtained from spatially resolved Keck/Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer observations. Stellar velocity dispersions were measured directly from the Mg Ib region, taking into consideration the effect of Fe II contamination, active galactic nucleus (AGN) dilution, and host-galaxy morphology on our measurements. BH masses are estimated using the H$\beta$ line width, and the luminosity at 5100 \overset{\lower.5em\circ}{\mathrm{A}} is estimated from surface brightness decomposition of the AGN from the host galaxy using high-resolution imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope. Additionally, we investigate the use of the [O III]$\lambda5007$ emission line width as a surrogate for stellar velocity dispersion, finding better correlation once corrected for Fe II contamination and any possible blueshifted wing components. Our selection criteria allowed us to probe lower-luminosity AGNs and lower-mass BHs in the non-local universe than those measured in previous single-epoch studies. We find that any offset in the $M_{\rm{BH}}-\sigma_*$ relation up to $z\sim0.6$ is consistent with the scatter of local BH masses, and address the sources of biases and uncertainties that contribute to this scatter.Comment: Accepted 14 May 2019 for publication in ApJ. 42 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables. Corrected for typographical error

Apes communicate about absent and displaced objects: methodology matters

Displaced reference is the ability to refer to an item that has been moved (displaced) in space and/or time, and has been called one of the true hallmarks of referential communication. Several studies suggest that nonhuman primates have this capability, but a recent experiment concluded that in a specific situation (absent entities) human infants display displaced reference but chimpanzees do not. Here we show that chimpanzees and bonobos of diverse rearing histories are capable of displaced reference to absent and displaced objects. It is likely that some of the conflicting findings from animal cognition studies are due to relatively minor methodological differences, but are compounded by interpretation errors. Comparative studies are of great importance in elucidating the evolution of human cognition, however, greater care must be taken with methodology and interpretation for these studies to accurately reflect species differences

It all just clicked: a longitudinal perspective on transitions within University

This paper explores the transitions that a group of students, admitted from further education colleges as part of broader widening access initiative at a Scottish research–intensive university, made across the lifetime of their degrees. It investigates how they negotiate their learning careers beyond the first year, and how they (re)define their approaches to independent learning as they progress to the later years of their courses. Evidence is drawn from 20 students who were interviewed during each of their three or four years of study to provide a longitudinal account of their experiences of engagement and participation at the university. We draw attention to three ways in which the students made transitions across the course of their degrees: to increased knowledge of the conventions of academic writing; to enhanced critical skills; and to practical strategies to prioritise learning

Information and the gaining of understanding

It is suggested that, in addition to data, information and knowledge, the information sciences should focus on understanding, understood as a higher-order knowledge, with coherent and explanatory potential. The limited ways in which understanding has been addressed in the design of information systems, in studies of information behaviour, in formulations of information literacy, and in impact studies are briefly reviewed, and future prospects considered. The paper is an extended version of a keynote presentation given at the i3 conference in June 2015

The plight of the sense-making ape

This is a selective review of the published literature on object-choice tasks, where participants use directional cues to find hidden objects. This literature comprises the efforts of researchers to make sense of the sense-making capacities of our nearest living relatives. This chapter is written to highlight some nonsensical conclusions that frequently emerge from this research. The data suggest that when apes are given approximately the same sense-making opportunities as we provide our children, then they will easily make sense of our social signals. The ubiquity of nonsensical contemporary scientific claims to the effect that humans are essentially--or inherently--more capable than other great apes in the understanding of simple directional cues is, itself, a testament to the power of preconceived ideas on human perception