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Validation of a dynamic local muscle function test and its response to local muscle temperature
Full text linkCurrent single joint isometric and isokinetic tests used to assess muscular performance are limited by the very testing-condition specific nature of the results, leading to a low to moderate correlation to in-vivo performance during sprinting and jumping. This study aimed to develop a single-joint plantarflexor test consisting of 30 s of maximal repeated dynamic contractions from 5° of dorsiflexion through 30° of plantarflexion at 70% of pre-testing isometric MVC. Twelve recreationally active healthy volunteers (9 male, 3 female) completed two different visits where they performed the isotonic plantarflexion test (IPFT). Session 1 aimed to establish its repeatability and variability during thermoneutral muscle temperature (36.6 ± 0.3°C). Across 4 bouts of IPFT with 30 min separation, no significant differences or pairwise differences were observed across measures of power, torque, work completed, time-to-peak torque or rate of torque development while average measures intraclass correlations ranged from 0.935 – 0.996. Session 2 assessed the sensitivity of the test to passive heating and cooling of the lower leg across thermoneutral (TN, 36.5 ± 0.3°C) Hot (38.3 ± 0.2°C) and Cold (33.3 ± 1.2°C) muscle temperatures. Aside from peak torque Hot had no effect on IPFT performance compared to TN, while Cold had a differential effect on IPFT performance. Compared to TN Cold led to significant increases in time-to-peak torque (Δ ↑ 0.14 s) and decreases in total work (Δ ↓ 10.02 J), average power (Δ ↓ 16.92 W) number of repetitions completed (Δ ↓ 4.90), average rate of torque development (Δ ↓ 65.30 Nm∙s-1) and peak torque (Δ ↓ 6.40 Nm). Changes in performance in Cold were likely due to the effects of cooling on rate processes and contractile characteristics, while we may not have heated muscle enough to impact performance in Hot.
Keywords: Isotonic Plantarflexion Test, Muscle Temperature, Muscular Power, Performanc
SMORE-DRL: Scalable Multi-Objective Robust and Efficient Deep Reinforcement Learning for Molecular Optimization
Full text linkThe adoption of AI techniques within the domain of drug design provides an opportunity of systematic and efficient exploration of the vast chemical search space. In recent years, advancements in this domain have been driven by AI frameworks, including deep reinforcement learning (DRL). However, the scalability and performance of existing DRL methodologies are constrained by prolonged training periods and inefficient sample data utilization. Furthermore, generalization capabilities of these models have not been fully investigated. To overcome these limitations, we take a multi-objective optimization perspective and introduce SMORE-DRL, a fragment and transformer-based multi-objective DRL architecture for the optimization of molecules across multiple pharmacological properties, including binding affinity to a cancer protein target. Our approach involves pretraining a transformer-encoder model on molecules encoded by a novel hybrid fragment-SMILES representation method. Fine-tuning is performed through a novel gradient-alignment-based DRL, where lead molecules are optimized by selecting and replacing their fragments with alternatives from a fragment dictionary, ultimately resulting in more desirable drug candidates. Our findings indicate that SMORE-DRL is superior to current models for lead optimization in terms of quality, efficiency, scalability, and robustness. Furthermore, SMORE-DRL demonstrates the capability of generalizing its optimization process to lead molecules that are not present during the pretraining or fine-tuning phases
A Within-Subject Comparison of Naturalistic Behaviour Intervention and Discrete Trial Teaching on the Acquisition of Verbal Operants
Full text linkAutistic children often present with deficits in language and communication skills. To address such deficits, children are referred to early intensive behaviour intervention (EIBI) to support meeting developmental goals. The purpose of this study was to conduct a within-subject comparison of two commonly used approaches to teaching language skills in EIBI, known as naturalistic behaviour intervention (NBI) and discrete trial teaching (DTT). The two participants recruited for this study were a 6-year-old boy diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and a 3-year-old girl diagnosed with ASD. Outcome measures consisted of determining the efficacy of each procedure, the extent to which each procedure led to mastery, social validity of each intervention, and finally, the extent to which skills taught during intervention generalized and maintained across time. Results of the study demonstrated that both DTT and NBI were efficacious in teaching language, both were efficient to varying degrees and both had varying levels of skill generalization and maintenance. Results of caregiver social validity indicated mixed perceptions for DTT and good perceptions for NBI. Participant assent scores were also mixed across the two approaches. Implications for using NBI and DTT during EIBI to teach language acquisition skills are discussed, along with recommendations for future research
Investigating the Antiviral Activity of Rosemary Extract Against Zika Virus
Full text linkIntroduction: Flaviviruses have increasingly emerged and re-emerged in recent decades, infecting millions of people annually. Zika virus (ZIKV) is particularly concerning due to its associated pathological complications, including microcephaly in newborns and Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults, posing a significant threat to public health. Despite efforts made by the scientific community, no licensed drugs against flaviviruses have been developed. Medicinal plants show promise as a novel source of antiviral agents, as they possess a diverse array of biologically active secondary metabolites, making them potential candidates for therapeutic use. Here, we sought to investigate the antiviral potential of rosemary extract (RE) against ZIKV in human dermal fibroblasts (HFF-1), one of the earliest targets of infection.
Methods: ZIKV was treated with various concentrations of RE or its individual major polyphenols, including rosmarinic acid (RA), carnosic acid (CA), and carnosol (CO), and the remaining infectivity of each sample was measured by plaque reduction assay. To evaluate the impact of RE on different stages of the ZIKV replication cycle, HFF-1 cells were treated before, during, and after infection, or the virus was treated before infection.
Results: RE exerted potent antiviral activity against ZIKV in both Vero and HFF-1 cells by directly acting on virus particles before infection. Importantly, RE significantly inhibited the later stages of the virus replication cycle by interfering with post-entry mechanisms within the host cell. Moreover, major RE-derived polyphenols CA and CO, but not RA, were shown to significantly reduce ZIKV infectivity.
Conclusion: Overall, RE significantly impairs ZIKV infection in vitro by directly interacting with virus particles prior to adsorption and interfering with post-entry processes of the ZIKV replication cycle. This study provides rigorous evidence indicating the potential development of RE as an antiviral agent, warranting further investigation into the mechanisms underlying its inhibitory activity against ZIKV and its effects on other medically important flaviviruses
Assets and Obstacles: An Analysis of Ontario Preparatory School Hockey from the Coaches’ Perspective
Full text linkAs young hockey players continue to dream of playing at elite levels, the landscape of
men’s hockey development in Ontario is has been a popular subject of conversation. Especially
as minor hockey eligibility comes to a close or the Ontario Hockey League draft year passes,
young players are left with the decision to choose the right path for them to continue to pursue
their dreams. While some options have a clear reputation for developing players, there are other
options that provide the level of development that players seek but are marginalized in a space
dominated by existing heavyweights. This study had the purpose of exploring the assets owned
and challenges faced by hockey teams in one of the less-popular development options in Ontario:
preparatory schools, as well as how these assets and obstacles impact a program’s legitimacy and
reputation. The researcher used the VDF model to gather information about the strengths and
challenges of men’s hockey programs at Ontario preparatory schools. The goal was to create a
helpful document for these programs to use when making strategic decisions to improve their
program. Interviews were conducted with 10 coaches from different Ontario preparatory school
men’s hockey teams, with questions regarding organizational reputation as well as the assets and
challenges their programs face. Through the results, it became clear that these programs rely on
physical and organizational assets primarily to find success and establish themselves as a
legitimate or reputable option in the Ontario hockey development ecosystem. Overall, Ontario
preparatory school men’s hockey teams have assets unique to each program but face a vast
landscape of challenges that vary depending on the context of each school
Testing Northeastern North American Native and Introduced Plants as Cover Crops in an Organic Vineyard
Full text linkCover crops have potential to provide ecosystem services including nitrogen fixation,
erosion control, water retention and infiltration, buffering climate variability, and beneficial
insect attraction. The objective of my thesis was to examine the potential performance of diverse
cover crop species in an organic vineyard. The first component of this study aimed at testing
northeastern North American native cover crop species, including Dalea purpurea, Rudbeckia
hirta, Glycyrrhiza lepidota, Asclepias tuberosa, Echinacea purpurea, and Symphyotrichum
ericoides. In the greenhouse, plants grown in monoculture were compared to those grown in
polyculture with all the other species. The performance measurements were based on emergence,
flowering, dry biomass, fresh biomass, plant moisture content, root:shoot ratio, and relative
interaction index.
R. hirta had a significantly higher dry shoot and root weight when grown in polyculture,
as opposed to monoculture. D. purpurea also had significantly higher dry root weight in
polyculture rather than in monoculture. S. ericoides and G. lepidota had significantly higher dry
shoot and root weight in monoculture than in a polyculture. A. tuberosa had the largest root
biomass in monoculture, while E. purpurea had the largest root biomass in the individual
treatment.
The second component aimed to determine the efficacy of two cover crop species
(Lobularia maritima and Trifolium incarnatum) in vineyard field conditions. The plants were
seeded under the vine rows, and plots were sampled along those seeded rows for each species.
One vegetation survey was completed, and two insect surveys. Vegetation was measured as
percent cover in the sample plots, and insects were collected on yellow sticky traps. L. maritima
abundance was positively correlated with spontaneous plant species abundance, and T.
incarnatum abundance was negatively correlated with spontaneous plant species abundance. The
presence of the L. maritima was weakly associated with an increase in parasitoids, while T.
incarnatum was weakly associated with predatory insects. Where there were more parasitoids,
there were fewer leafhoppers.
My results suggest a potential of these various species to provide important ecosystem
services such as pest control in organic vineyards. Understanding the interactions among cover
crop species, their influence on vines and the entire ecosystem requires further studies
Academic Advising at Ontario Universities: An Institutional Ethnography of Practice in the Field
Full text linkProfessional academic advisors are important contributors to individual and institutional student success efforts. Despite their importance, little research exists on academic advisors in Ontario university contexts. Using institutional ethnography (IE) as my theoretical and methodological approach, the purpose of this research was to privilege the epistemologies of academic advisors and explore the material, text-mediated conditions that shaped and controlled their work. More specifically, I wanted to discover the ruling relations of academic advising work at Ontario universities by mapping the actual work of academic advisors, the texts they used in their work, and how these texts impacted students. In addition to my own practitioner reflections, I interviewed 29 academic advisors across 12 Ontario universities. First, I found the actual work of academic advisors is to support students across the academic cycle. This work has evolved significantly, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, as academic advisors’ caseloads have grown in both size and complexity. Second, I found that academic advisors use several texts, mainly academic policies, in every stage of the academic cycle. However, academic advisors’ job descriptions do not accurately capture the totality of their work knowledge, and thus, their work knowledge often goes unrecognized in important institutional mechanisms, such as policy work. Third, I found that since most academic advisors are not actively involved in institutional-level policy creation, location, and communication, they end up interpreting, translating, and re-creating policies differently in their local units. This institutional-level coordination (policy creation, location and communication) is the policy problematic that results in inconsistent and inequitable advising experiences for students. These findings support recommendations to build institutional, provincial, and federal awareness of the work knowledge of academic advisors and leverage their voices in policy processes. This research is the first ever IE of academic advising at Ontario universities and adds to the limited understanding of the academic advising profession. The findings give leadership real data, including several reproducible work process maps to build practical improvements to both local level work and institutional level policy processes
Organically Developed Neighbourhoods in Asia: Lessons for Modern Urban Planning Neighbourhood Design in Canada
Full text linkThis research investigates the characteristics of organically grown neighbourhoods in Asia, with a primary focus on the city of Amritsar, India, in order to identify those that could be incorporated in the design of Canadian cities in the interest of promoting more sustainable community planning. Through a comprehensive examination of the cultural and historical context of the community design of Amritsar’s organically grown neighbourhoods, it is found that a thriving culture and sense of community is found within such a development model. This case study aims to highlight the importance of having people-centric communities rather than car-centric neighbourhoods that promote personal automobile use. People-centric growth aims to have walkable and sociable communities that are designed by keeping human needs and relationships in mind, whereas car-centric urban planning offers isolated environments for individuals. This study offers insights into how modern-day Canadian urban planning can take notes from organically grown neighbourhoods of Asia, including Amritsar, in order to create thriving communities. This can, at once, help to address the many negative environmental, economic, and social consequences of automobile-oriented urban and suburban development, as well as the ongoing housing crisis facing Canadian cities today. While planners and policymakers in developing countries today are often looking to Western planning models as their inspiration, I argue in this thesis that planners and policymakers in the West, including those in Canada, should actually be looking for inspiration from those places instead. This is especially true in those parts of Asian cities that have grown organically over hundreds of years and already possess many of the characteristics of a sustainable city that Western planners should aim to achieve
Nonverbal Sensitivity in Adolescence
Full text linkNonverbal sensitivity is the ability to perceive and interpret social interaction cues, which is crucial in enhancing social dynamics, psychological well-being, and success in various life domains. While adults are generally believed to possess greater nonverbal sensitivity than children, the timeline for its development remains inadequately explored, particularly during adolescence. This study investigates the capacity of adolescents to infer emotional and social information from visual scenes and compares it to adults' abilities. The sample comprised 79 adolescents and 89 adults, with a balanced gender distribution (55.1% male), recruited through community advertisements. Participants were shown line-drawn images of social interactions (Teh et al., 2019) for durations of 1 second and 2 seconds, focusing on dimensions such as valence, intensity, and degree of social engagement. Accuracy scores were created by comparing gender-matched normed means (Teh et al., 2019). While accuracy scores did not differ significantly between the two viewing durations, increased accuracy was noted for intensity interpretations at the 2-second mark. Notably, age-related differences emerged in the valence condition, with adolescents demonstrating lower accuracy than adults. Additionally, gender differences were observed in both the valence and degree of social engagement dimensions, with females outperforming males. These findings indicate that even brief exposures (1 second) can yield reasonably accurate inferences, but adolescents exhibited a negativity bias, interpreting social scenes more negatively. This aligns with prevailing developmental theories on social processing during adolescence. This research contributes to a better understanding of nonverbal sensitivity in adolescents and underscores its significance for social perception
Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park pamphlet and map, ca. 1888
No full textThe brochure is an example of one of the earliest printed record of promotional material for the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park. The Ontario provincial government appointed as commissioners Casimir S. Gzowski, John W. Langmuir, John A. Orchard and John G. Macdonald. James Wilson was appointed park superintendent.
The park was opened in 1888, culminating in 10 years of efforts on behalf of the provincial government to bring the natural beauty and tourist destination under its control.
The brochure extols the natural features of the 154-acre park and promotes pathways, pretty rustic bridges and a continuous view of the “Grand Rapids”. Other attractions include an under the falls experience by way of a hydraulic elevator, a bird’s eye view of the surroundings from the cupola of Table Rock House and pretty carriage rides to Dufferin Islands. Tourists were encouraged to experience the Whirlpool Rapids, and the Lundy’s Lane Battle Ground.A quad fold printed pamphlet of Queen Victoria Park, Niagara Falls, Ont. with a full coloured map of the park on the reverse. The brochure was printed by Alexander & Cable, Toronto