Distress Tolerance among Students Referred for Treatment Following Violation of Campus Cannabis Use Policy: Relations to Use, Problems, and Motivation

Students referred to treatment after violating campus drug policies represent a high-risk group. Identification of factors related to these students’ cannabis use could inform prevention and treatment efforts. Distress tolerance (DT) is negatively related to substance-related behaviors and may be related to high-risk cannabis use vulnerability factors that can impact treatment outcome. Thus, the current study tested whether DT was related to cannabis use frequency, cannabis-related problems, and motivation to change cannabis use among 88 students referred for treatment after violating campus cannabis policies. DT was robustly, negatively related to cannabis use and related problems. DT was also significantly, negatively correlated with coping, conformity, and expansion motives. DT was directly and indirectly related to cannabis problems via coping (not conformity or expansion) motives. Motives did not mediate the relation of DT to cannabis use frequency. DT may be an important target in treatment with students who violate campus cannabis policies.

Killing animals: sociology, species relations and institutionalized violence

Influential voices have argued for a sociology which acknowledges the way we are co-constituted with a range of non-human species as part of the condition of life on this planet. Despite this, sociology has generally retained a conception of the social that is centred on the human. This paper argues for the inclusion of non-human animals in sociological agendas, focusing on the emerging field of the sociology of violence. It examines the institutions and processes through which non-human animals are subjected to different forms of violence, most notably, mass killing.The practice of killing animals is routine,normative,institutionalized and globalized.The scale of killing is historically unprecedented and the numbers killed are enormous. The paper argues that this killing of non-humans raises questions around inequal- ities and intersectionality, human relations with other species, the embedding of violence in everyday practices and links between micro and macro analyses. These are questions with which the new sociology of violence might engage.

A Methodological Approach to User Evaluation and Assessment of a Virtual Environment Hangout

Innovation in virtual reality and motion sensing devices is pushing the development of virtual communication platforms towards completely immersive scenarios, which require full user interaction and create complex sensory experiences. This evolution influences user experiences and creates new paradigms for interaction, leading to an increased importance of user evaluation and assessment on new systems interfaces and usability, to validate platform design and development from the users’ point of view. The REVERIE research project aims to develop a virtual environment service for realistic inter-personal interaction. This paper describes the design challenges faced during the development process of user interfaces and the adopted methodological approach to user evaluation and assessment.