STEM Fellowship Journal最新文献

{"title":"3D bioprinting in microgravity: An end to organ donor shortages?","authors":"Stephanie Yi Fei Lu, Adam M R Groh","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-011","url":null,"abstract":"Countless lives have been saved with the advent of modern organ transplantation. However, the current shortage of compatible organ donors is limiting the life-saving potential of transplantation. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, approximately 20 patients die each day in the United States while waiting for a transplant [1]. The discrepancy between supply and demand of organ donors is accentuated by a fundamental ethical dilemma associated with deceased organ donation: one person must die so that another may live [2]. The current viewpoint considers the viability of 3D bioprinting in microgravity as a solution to organ donor shortages. Current alternatives to deceased organ donation, including xenotransplantation and other state-of-the-art bioprinting techniques, are reviewed and compared to bioprinting in microgravity. The limitations of bioprinting within Earth’s gravitational field are also discussed, revealing the need for further research.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132529593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tocilizumab: A promising treatment for COVID-19 patients","authors":"Janani Anandan, Cecilia Lee","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-010","url":null,"abstract":"A novel Coronavirus was identified in China as SARS-CoV-2 in December 2019 and was later declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization [1]. In most patients, COVID-19 presents with mild or moderate symptoms such as fever, cough, fatigue, and myalgia. However, around 10% of patients develop more severe symptoms such as pneumonia and multiorgan failure, which can result in death [1-2]. Until vaccines are widely available, the only way to reduce fatality rates is to treat affected patients with existing drugs and therapy options.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124605836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The relationship between maritime phosphate pollution and socioeconomic wellbeing","authors":"Tony Hu, William Zhou, Andrew Li, Dhananjay Patki","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-012","url":null,"abstract":"Phosphate rock reserves are expected to deplete in the next 50-100 years, with the point of highest phosphorus production predicted to be in 2030. Phosphate, the base of many fertilizers, is a non-renewable resource. Ocean phosphate concentrations provide a good indication of global fertilizer use, since agricultural runoff often contributes to increases in ocean phosphate concentration. This study explores the relationship between the concentration of phosphate in a nation’s maritime borders and the nation’s score on the Social Progress Index. The study aims to link findings with possible approaches to help meet two of the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals: creating sustainable communities, and conserving and sustainably using oceans. Phosphate concentration data were acquired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and compared with factors of social welfare from the 2018 Social Progress Index. For each nation on the Social Progress Index, the nation’s score on every factor was separately compared to ocean phosphate concentration data within that nation’s maritime borders, and a linear regression was performed for each comparison. The results indicate countries ranking higher on the Social Progress Index generally have greater ocean phosphate concentrations, suggesting that countries of higher social welfare contribute more to global phosphate use or have greater amounts of fertilizer runoff. The findings should be considered by developed nations to inform decisions around pollution reduction as well as developing nations aiming for sustainable social progress. Both should consider the environmental effects that social progress has or will have on the greater global community, of which the significance to sustainable resource development and environmental protection is invaluable.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128561627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition 2021","authors":"","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-007","url":null,"abstract":"The Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition (HKSSPC) promotes the interest in science and technology among youth, develops their creativity and critical thinking skills through an innov ative application of science and technology, and ignites their passions and career interests in these areas. This year, the HKSSPC was organized by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, the Education Bureau, the Hong Kong Science Museum, and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. Furthermore, it was supported by the Innovation and Technology Commission and the Hong Kong Young Academic of Sciences. We extend our thanks to all these groups for making this year’s competition a success. STEM Fellowship collaborated with the HKSSPC Secretariat to provide youth from Hong Kong with the unique opportunity to submit their work in the STEM Fellowship Journal. This year’s theme was “Inspiration from Living - Innovation from Science” with an emphasis on United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The broad scope of the competition allowed participants to submit their work in a variety of areas such as water pollution, nanoparticles, artificial intelligence systems, agriculture, environmental health, plastics, waste reduction, and many more. We are pleased to share the creativity and ambitious drive for research demonstrated by HKSSPC’s participants in these proceedings. We would like to congratulate every passionate individual who participated in the HKSSPC this year and wish them the best in their future STEM-related endeavours.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"99 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121446212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using real-world transaction data to identify money laundering: Leveraging traditional regression and machine learning techniques","authors":"Daniel Harris, Kyla Pyndiura, S. Sturrock, R. Christensen","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-006","url":null,"abstract":"Money laundering is a pervasive legal and economic problem that hides criminal activity. Identifying money laundering is a priority for both banks and governments, thus, machine learning algorithms have emerged as a possible strategy to detect suspicious financial activity within financial institutions. We used traditional regression and supervised machine learning techniques to identify bank customers at an increased risk of committing money laundering. Specifically, we assessed whether model performance differed across varying operationalizations of the outcome (e.g., multinomial vs. binary classification) and determined whether the inclusion of investigator-derived novel features (e.g., averages across existing features) could improve model performance. We received two proprietary datasets from Scotiabank, a large bank headquartered in Canada. The datasets included customer account information (N = 4,469) and customers’ monthly transaction histories (N = 2,827) from April 15, 2019 to April 15, 2020. We implemented traditional logistic regression, logistic regression with LASSO regularization (LASSO), K-nearest neighbours (KNN), and extreme gradient boosted models (XGBoost). Results indicated that traditional logistic regression with a binary outcome, conducted with investigator-derived novel features, performed the best with an F1 score of 0.79 and accuracy of 0.72. Models with a binary outcome had higher accuracy than the multinomial models, but the F1 scores yielded mixed results. For KNN and XGBoost, we observed little change or worsening performance after the introduction of the investigator-derived novel features. However, the investigator-derived novel features improved model performance for LASSO and traditional logistic regression. Our findings demonstrate that investigators should consider different operationalizations of the outcome, where possible, and include novel features derived from existing features to potentially improve the detection of customer at risk of committing money laundering.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"199 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132683363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Undergraduate Engineering Research Day 2021","authors":"","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-005","url":null,"abstract":"The University of Toronto’s Undergraduate Engineering Research Day (UnERD) is an annual conference aimed at providing an opportunity for undergraduate engineering students to showcase their research to industry professionals and fellow students, inspiring the exchange of innovative solutions across a wide breadth of global challenges. STEM Fellowship came together with the UnERD organizers to provide a unique opportunity to the engineering students to publish their work in our STEM Fellowship Journal. For all the variation between project themes, it remains that all submissions are of incredibly high quality. Every abstract is demonstrative of immense creativity and high potential on the respective team’s part. On behalf of STEM Fellowship, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all students who participated in UnERD, and I wish them all the best for their future endeavours in research and engineering. It has been a privilege for us to witness the research capabilities of the next generation of students firsthand, and I am certain all entrants will continue to demonstrate excellence in their respective research careers.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133480840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Comparative Analysis of Air Pollution Levels During Times of International Uncertainty: The Financial Crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020","authors":"Ammar Vora, Hillary Hale","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-004","url":null,"abstract":"During a crisis, economies stagnate as uncertainty grows about the future state of the world. The financial crisis of 2008 led to a severe recession where the global economy halted for approximately two years, causing unemployment and poverty [1]. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which attacks the respiratory system [2], was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late December of 2019. Within a matter of months, it spread globally causing economies to shut down. As distinct as the financial crisis of 2008 may seem from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, both have had devastating effects on national economies and industrial production, resulting in an overall decrease in air pollutant emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Therefore, parallels can be made between air pollution levels during each crisis. Given air pollution rates increased after the financial crisis of 2008 [3], it is likely air pollution will also rise in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to support this argument by analyzing air pollution trends outlined in the results of several published papers.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117199516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"2021 Undergraduate Big Data Challenge: Infodemiology for the Future of Digital and Public Health","authors":"","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-003","url":null,"abstract":"STEM Fellowship’s Undergraduate Big Data Challenge (UnBDC) is an inquiry-driven and experiential learning program that invites students from across the country to strengthen their problem-solving and critical thinking skills while gaining familiarity with the fundamentals of data science. By allowing students to undertake independent research projects that tackle realworld public health and bioinformatics problems, the BDC fosters scientific inquiry and prompts new and innovative ideas.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125832617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"COVID-19: The Use of Fear to Control the Pandemic","authors":"Daqing He","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-002","url":null,"abstract":"The ongoing Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a profound social and economic impact globally [1]. In retrospect, the widespread fear generated by the current pandemic is not so different from that of other pandemics not so long ago. Although fear is typically associated with misinformation and panic, which usually worsens the situation, the fear of COVID-19 can be used to prevent more infections if combined with accurate public health information.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125284428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic: The Impact of American Public Sources on Sentiment, Conversation, and Physician Behaviour Towards Hydroxychloroquine","authors":"Emily W.L. Chan, G. Choi, Kendrew S. K. Wong, Shi Zeng, Anish R. Verma","doi":"10.17975/sfj-2021-001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17975/sfj-2021-001","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 infodemic, described as an overabundance of both accurate and inaccurate information, poses a significant public health risk in spreading fear and provoking inappropriate prescription. The overwhelming and often contradictory information on as potential treatments for COVID-19 have contributed to this infodemic. Public sources including the US federal government, health organizations, and research publications have released conflicting statements on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. Previous research has not analyzed the influence of these sources on public attitudes and conversation towards the drug. To evaluate this impact, changes in the number and sentiment of tweets tagged with the hashtag or keyword “hydroxychloroquine” from March 12th to June 22nd, 2020 in relation to public sources were analyzed. We found that the US government had a statistically significant influence on public attitudes and behaviour (p < 0.001), unlike health organizations and research publications. Public sentiment on hydroxychloroquine has also been observed to become more negative over time, suggesting that public attitudes towards controversial topics can change. This study also found a positive correlation between public sentiment of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs (i.e. azithromycin and remdesivir) which indicates that public sources disseminating hydroxychloroquine-related information could also affect public attitudes towards related treatments. In a public health crisis, all statements and actions from public sources regarding contentious topics like hydroxychloroquine should be made with caution. To mitigate the disproportionate influence of public sources in an infodemic, we recommend three solutions: (a) education to empower individuals of all ages to develop critical thinking and digital literacy skills; (b) stronger action from social media platforms in labeling misinformation; (c) and cooperation between entities with strong influence (e.g. federal government) and other sources for public health measures. Together, these recommendations could resolve shortcomings existent with a single approach. Future research should be conducted with a custom trained model for sentiment analysis. It would also be valuable to conduct a similar version of the study on other social media platforms as well as for public health issues beyond COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":268438,"journal":{"name":"STEM Fellowship Journal","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121594138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}