UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences最新文献_第2页

Quantitative Assessment of Handedness and Cerebral Lateralization 偏手性与大脑偏侧性的定量评估

UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences Pub Date : 2021-03-30 DOI: 10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34660

B. Das, Jed A. Meltzer, Blair C. Armstrong

{"title":"Quantitative Assessment of Handedness and Cerebral Lateralization","authors":"B. Das, Jed A. Meltzer, Blair C. Armstrong","doi":"10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34660","url":null,"abstract":" \u0000Handedness is the most studied human asymmetry due to its connection to various lateralized behaviours and hence many studies have focused on developing a valid assessment. One of the most popular is the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI), however, its psychometric properties have been questioned and due to its complex response format, various modified versions of EHI are in use. One of them is a 7-item questionnaire produced by Dragovic and Milenkovic (2013), which seeks to reduce a potentially continuous variable to a categorical one by clearly classifying people as right- or left- handed. The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to more accurately quantify mixed-handedness as a continuous variable, and to investigate the correlation between Dragovic’s modified 7-item EHI, new items created for this study, and three performance measures (grooved pegboard, finger-tapping and grip strength/dynamometer). A total of 113 self-reported right-, left- and mixed-handed participants were randomly recruited to complete the questionnaire and behavioural measures. The questionnaire data was submitted to exploratory factor analysis and resulting factor scores were examined for correlations with behavioural tests. Compared to the modified EHI, the questionnaire showed a more continuous grading of handedness. Moreover, the degree of handedness on the questionnaire showed a stronger correlation with all the performance measures than the performance measures had amongst themselves. These findings show that the novel questionnaire with modern-day items can provide an accurate estimate of the degree of mixed-handedness in both right- and left-handed individuals. Future studies should examine these measures on a larger sample of left-handed and ambidextrous people, who tend to be more variable than right-handers in their usage. The questionnaire can also be suitable for studying the relationship between variable handedness and other aspects of brain lateralization.","PeriodicalId":292410,"journal":{"name":"UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124808792","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}

引用次数: 0

An Overview of Stem Cell Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease 帕金森病干细胞治疗综述

UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences Pub Date : 2021-03-30 DOI: 10.33137/JNS.V2I1.35890

S. Faour, A. Ashok

{"title":"An Overview of Stem Cell Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease","authors":"S. Faour, A. Ashok","doi":"10.33137/JNS.V2I1.35890","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/JNS.V2I1.35890","url":null,"abstract":"Parkinson’s disease (PD) is referred to as a neurodegenerative disease which is a disease that targets specific brain regions and is characterized by neuronal death. PD is believed to be caused by the loss of nerve cells in the substantia nigra (SN), a dopamine releasing area (Dickson, 2012). Current treatments are directed at alleviating pain symptoms and slowing down the progression of disease, however, no cure currently exists. Recent advances in stem cell therapies raise new possibilities to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Stem cells have the ability to differentiate into neural cells, and thus, could potentially be used to restore neurogenesis and neuroplasticity (Lunn et al., 2011). There exist several cell types that can be applied in therapy including embryonic stem cells (ESCs), neural stem cells (NSCs), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). PD which has localized neural degeneration to the SN may serve as a better model for stem cell therapy and displays greater success when compared to other neurodegenerative diseases that spread to several brain regions (Vasic et al., 2019). This review aims to discuss the several approaches used in stem cell therapy as well as the current challenges and shortcomings of this cell-based therapy.","PeriodicalId":292410,"journal":{"name":"UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132575429","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}

引用次数: 1

Smartphone-based Identification of Critical Levels of Glycated Hemoglobin A1c using Transdermal Optical Imaging 基于智能手机的经皮光学成像糖化血红蛋白A1c临界水平识别

UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences Pub Date : 2021-03-30 DOI: 10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34645

Hudda Salih, S. J. Wu, Evgueni Kabakov, Kang Lee, Weihong Zhou

{"title":"Smartphone-based Identification of Critical Levels of Glycated Hemoglobin A1c using Transdermal Optical Imaging","authors":"Hudda Salih, S. J. Wu, Evgueni Kabakov, Kang Lee, Weihong Zhou","doi":"10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34645","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34645","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Worldwide, the prevalence of diabetes has continued to increase rapidly. This gives rise to concerns regarding appropriate diabetes management to ensure optimal glycemic control. Untreated or uncontrolled diabetes can lead to a host of complications, such as cardiovascular diseases, an increased likelihood of morbidity and mortality (Deshpande, Harris-Hayes, & Schootman, 2008). A challenging problem which arises in diabetes management is the limitations of current blood glucose monitoring techniques. Electronic medical devices can potentially overcome the persistent problems in the healthcare industry. Thus, for this study, it was of interest to investigate whether advanced machine learning methods and Anura, a smartphone-based transdermal optical imaging technology (TOI) that assess health markers, can be a viable solution for diabetes management. Objectives: To examine the validity of TOI and a novel machine algorithm for diabetes prediction (i.e diabetes and non-diabetes). We compared the diabetes classification from TOI’s obtained glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) concentrations against data obtained from FDA approved blood immunoassay. Methods: In the present study, we used a kitchen sink random forest machine algorithm for diabetes prediction. The data set was obtained from 513 participants recruited during their annual physical examination at the Health Management Center of The Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, China. This included participant’s TOI and blood immunoassay determined HbA1c concentrations. To validate the model, pristine testing was done on 400 pristine participants pseudo randomly selected during 20 trials of training/testing. Results: The confusion matrix found TOI to have a classification accuracy of 66%, and the ROC curve of the RF classifier found TOI to have a ROC AUC of 0.69. Conclusions: The present study provides evidence for the potential use of the TOI technology, Anura, for contactless, non-invasive, and inexpensive assessments of diabetes.","PeriodicalId":292410,"journal":{"name":"UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131222928","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}

引用次数: 2

3-[(2,4-dihydroxy-3,3-dimethylbutanoyl)amino]propanoic acid (Vitamin B5): Its Synthesis, Transformation into Coenzyme A and Role in Disease 3-[(2,4-二羟基-3,3-二甲基丁醇基)氨基]丙酸(维生素B5):合成、转化为辅酶A及其在疾病中的作用

UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences Pub Date : 2021-03-30 DOI: 10.33137/JNS.V2I1.35005

Maliha Imami

{"title":"3-[(2,4-dihydroxy-3,3-dimethylbutanoyl)amino]propanoic acid (Vitamin B5): Its Synthesis, Transformation into Coenzyme A and Role in Disease","authors":"Maliha Imami","doi":"10.33137/JNS.V2I1.35005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/JNS.V2I1.35005","url":null,"abstract":"This is a paper on Vitamin B5, it’s role in coenzyme A synthesis and how deficiency of B5 can have catastrophic consequences of human health. In this review, the process of pantothenate synthesis in bacteria and plants will be explored, followed by the role of B5 in the synthesis of coenzyme A (CoA). Understanding these mechanisms is of critical importance to nutritional and clinical authorities to aid the formation of guidelines that promote good health and clinical treatment. The biosynthesis pathway of pantothenate in pathogenic bacteria is of particular interest in the future design of antibiotic drugs as it contains many potential enzyme targets that are absent and unnecessary in humans. The importance of B5 and the CoA synthesis pathway is highlighted via a discussion of diseases that result or are linked with improper functioning of these systems. Subsequently, the paper explores the benefits of B5 supplementation for cholesterol and inflammation reduction and immune response during tuberculosis infection. The paper then explores the prevalence of poor vitamin B5 intake in certain populations to highlight where B5 consumption increases or supplementation should be promoted.","PeriodicalId":292410,"journal":{"name":"UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126466091","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}

引用次数: 0

Physiological Responses of Coral Reef Species to Emerging Threats of Anthropogenic Climate Change 珊瑚礁物种对人为气候变化新威胁的生理反应

UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences Pub Date : 2021-03-30 DOI: 10.33137/JNS.V2I1.34665

Rabia Mahmood

引用次数: 0

Spotlights 聚光灯

UTSC's Journal of Natural Sciences Pub Date : 2018-06-01 DOI: 10.1142/s021903031800085x

Yusong Tan

引用次数: 5