Magister Scientiae Dentium - MSc(Dent) / This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of intranasal sufentanil/midazolam [S/M] and ketamine/madazolam [K/M] for sedation and analgesia in preschool children that require dental surgery [extractions]. Fifty children [ASA 1] aged 5 – 7 years, requiring six or more dental extractions under general anaesthesia, were allocated to two groups of 25 children to receive either ketamine 5 mg/kg or sufentanil 20μg intranasally, 20 minutes before induction of surgery in this randomised double-blind study. All the children in both groups in addition concurrently received nasal midazolam 0,3 mg/kg. For induction of anaesthesia, sevoflurane in nitrous oxide and oxygen, was used. S/M was accepted significantly better as a nasal pre-medication [p<0.05]. Both groups were equally sedated and a smooth mask induction of anaesthesia was experienced in the majority of children. Recovery of children in both groups were similar; 82% of the S/M group were fully recovered 120 minutes post-operatively versus 80% in the K/M group [p>0,05]. Effective postoperative analgesia for multiple extractions was provided. For pain evaluation, children were divided into two groups, a non-responder group where all pain values over time were more than 40 and a responder group where pain values were equal to, or less than 40. Seventy two percent of children in the S/M group were responders as to fifty two percent in the K/M group [p>0,05]. No adverse respiratory, cardiovascular or other effects were recorded. This study showed that intranasal administration of sufentanil /midazolam or ketamine/midazolam, provides safe and effective sedation and analgesia in children aged 5–7 years undergoing multiple dental extractions.

This thesis covered the fast track assessment of the referred dental patient for conscious sedation in a day clinic. The assessment took in consideration patient information, medical history, anatomical observations, treatment required, phobic aspects and patient expectations.

<p> Medical diagnosis is a complex task, that requires integrating several sources and types of information: a patient's description of their symptoms, lab results, and perhaps even 'gut feelings' regarding potential diagnoses. From a cognitive psychology perspective, diagnosis is a type of categorization and as such has been typically divided into processes that are deliberate, rule oriented, and available to conscious control (often called analytic processing) and processes that are rapid, outside of conscious awareness, and typically based on similarity (often referred to as non-analytic processing).</p> <p> Traditionally, similarity has referred to whole-case similarity between a current and previously encountered case. However, this pattern matching to an entire previous case does not differentiate between diagnostic and non-diagnostic information, a distinction that is made clear in the rules taught to medical professionals. Since medicine does rely extensively on diagnostic rules, the research presented in this thesis will examine the effect of similarity of features relevant to the application of a diagnostic rule as well as the effect of similarity from patient identity, which is mnemonically salient but diagnostically irrelevant.</p> <p> The work presented in this thesis specifically examines the role of similarity in the categorization, or diagnostic decisions of novices. Medical students start training with the best available rules, standard diagnostic rules likely to be used in future practice. In the experiments reported in this thesis, participants are trained to competence on diagnostic rules using prototypical written case vignettes of simplified psychiatric diagnoses. Participants then evaluate cases in which clinical information supports two possible diagnoses, but in which either diagnostic features or diagnostically irrelevant identity information is similar to those seen in training. The results of these experiments indicate a strong reliance on familiar of rule-relevant symptom descriptions (i.e. similarity within the application of a diagnostic rule), supporting an adaptive role of similarity within the application of an analytical decision rule. Further, the influence of familiar diagnostically irrelevant information (i.e. similarity within the context of patient identity) demonstrates the maintenance of non-diagnostic information within memory, and the possibility of matching to a previous exemplar on rule-irrelevant features. Familiarity, whether diagnostically relevant or not, increases the probability that clinically relevant features are mentioned in support of a diagnosis, which may indicate the disambiguation of features following previous experience with that feature, and a strong influence of familiar but non-diagnostic information on the interpretation of features.</p> <p> This thesis supports a model of medical decision making in which there is an effect of similarity to previous instantiations of clinically relevant features. That is, similarity is a basic component of decision making that is not limited to matching on entire previous instances. Previous research has suggested that analytic and non-analytic reasoning are competing or fundamentally separate processes, whereas the demonstration of similarity within the application of a diagnostic rule suggests that not only is similarity an adaptive strategy for learners, but the differentiation between similarity based and rule based processes may be less clear than previously suggested.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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The purpose of this study is to explore how conscious rap is used as a form of activism. Interviews of conscious rappers based in Atlanta, GA were used to understand this relationship. In order to complete this investigation, ten unsigned conscious rappers were given a series of questions to explore their involvement as activist; some of these artist were also recruited based on affiliations with political organizations based in Atlanta, GA. By gathering interviews from conscious rappers who consider their music as a form of activism, scholars of African American Studies may further understand the role of music and political activism when mobilizing the African American and minority communities.

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate how green product design has been practiced within the Swedish furniture industry. Furthermore, to investigate how green product design can reduce the negative impact on the environment. Theoretical framework - The literature used to serve as a base for this paper includes some aspects concerning Green Supply Chain Management, but fundamentally concerns green or environmentally conscious design, motivators for designing „green‟ products, such as legislation, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), internal policy documents and/or green guidelines/certificates, innovation, competitiveness, economic performance, brand image and reputation, and others. Consequently, factors for product design itself were discussed, such as environmentally conscious design, efficient utilization of materials, minimizing waste, time and cost efficiency, types of materials used, etc. Moreover, sustainability aspects are considered vital, namely economic, social and environmental practices, as particular attention is paid to the economic and environmental aspects. Methodology - For the purpose of this research paper, (multiple) case studies were chosen to be implemented. One face-to-face, two telephone and two Skype/online interviews were conducted based on semi-structured interview questions. The data collected is from four companies, two of them preferred to remain anonymous, i.e. Office Furniture and Office Design, and the other two were Kinnarps and Skandiform. Findings - The empirical findings gathered for this research comply with the majority of theoretical data provided. A number of the most important and applicable green product design factors, and more specifically the aim of reducing negative environmental impacts, drive companies to implement environmentally conscious design, efficient utilization of materials, minimizing waste, costs associated, types of materials used, product safety, among many others. Furthermore, economic, social and environmental (overall regarded as sustainability for the purpose of this paper) factors are taken into consideration. Economic and environmental issues were mostly discussed and pinpointed as essential. Conclusions - Green product design should follow a number of important factors in order to reduce the negative impacts on the environment. It is essential to understand a company‟s motivation for designing green products. Nevertheless, such factors as well as economic aspects regarding green design should be complementing each other.

This dissertation investigates writing practices attuned to northern places. Eight experienced teachers from six regions in Canada’s Northwest Territories agreed to think-together in a study which took a hermeneutic approach to the focusing, gathering, and the analysis of data. Writing was both the subject for the inquiry and the methodology, as I asked participants to engage in ten workshops designed to move conversations away from familiar answers to the question: what practices invite northern students to write? In a place where the majority of students are Indigenous, I hoped that the writing workshops would invite the non-Indigenous teachers to consider their relationship to the many interconnecting dimensions of place. While writing seems to take one away from the particulars of experience to more universal concerns as one tries to capture meaning, paradoxically, writing returns to the particular. In the first four chapters, I use my 19 years of experience as a northern teacher as a heuristic for the study by contrasting the thinking of ‘the new teacher who has just arrived in the North’ to the voice of ‘the researcher.’ Four data chapters take up the ideas that emerged from the thinking-together with the teachers. I examine how the teachers used complexity thinking to approach their writing pedagogy. I consider how new literacies might overlap Indigenous pedagogies and Western writing pedagogies. I assert that the qualia of individual experience might serve as engaging subject matter for student writing. And finally, I explore how teachers might orient writing practices toward the development of voice rather than overemphasize procedural text-based approaches. This study will add to the literature on teaching writing with Indigenous students and to the literature on post-process pedagogy, particularly as it draws from Geography. Through example, this dissertation may illustrate how non-Indigenous educators can draw from Indigenous education in a way that respects and integrates its philosophical foundations. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-29 11:38:17.767

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In my dissertation I explain and defend the claim that conscious beliefs are essentially prescriptive. I argue that norms of conscious belief are explained by the fact that consciously believing p involves a commitment to the truth of p, a commitment analogous to the one involved in the act of accepting an assertion in public linguistic practice. Having a conscious belief implies being vulnerable to certain questions and criticisms from other agents. For instance, when asked for reasons for her belief, a person should provide a justification which demonstrates her entitlement to accepting the given proposition as true. Moreover, if a certain belief logically follows from the agent’s beliefs then she should either accept it as a conclusion or revise her initial beliefs. I argue that both deliberative and non-inferential conscious beliefs can be construed as acceptances of assertions and that they carry the same normative import as public acts of accepting claims put forward by others. The intrinsic relation between conscious belief and language-use shows that conscious belief is irreducible to unconscious or lower-level belief, the type of belief which we attribute to non-human animals or small children. Rather than trying to reduce conscious belief to lower-level belief, I suggest that we should offer an account of the emergence of the linguistic practice of assertion in terms of animal belief and then explain the normative features of conscious belief by reference to the norms implicit in assertional practice. In addition, my work proposes a way of formulating the norms of conscious belief which is consistent with the fact that actual human beings do not have perfect logical abilities; that they can only dedicate a limited amount of time and cognitive resources to the task of reasoning.