Wash Your Hands... And Brush Your Teeth!

COVID-19 has become a novel pandemic increasing rapidly all over the world. Periodontal disease and COVID-19 share many of the same risk factors such as age, gender, and systemic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Although not many studies exist on periodontal disease (PD) and COVID-19 due to it being a new and emerging topic, many studies suggest key links between the two. Maintaining superior oral health is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent PD. Further research is needed to have concrete evidence between PD and COVID-19 due to COVID-19 being a new and emerging illness, while PD is more frequently studied and understood.https://dune.une.edu/dh_studpost/1009/thumbnail.jp

Therapeutic targeting of cathepsin C::from pathophysiology to treatment

Cathepsin C (CatC) is a highly conserved tetrameric lysosomal cysteine dipeptidyl aminopeptidase. The best characterized physiological function of CatC is the activation of pro-inflammatory granule-associated serine proteases. These proteases are synthesized as inactive zymogens containing an N-terminal pro-dipeptide, which maintains the zymogen in its inactive conformation and prevents premature activation, which is potentially toxic to the cell. The activation of serine protease zymogens occurs through cleavage of the N-terminal dipeptide by CatC during cell maturation in the bone marrow. In vivo data suggest that pharmacological inhibition of pro-inflammatory serine proteases would suppress or attenuate deleterious effects of inflammatory/auto-immune disorders mediated by these proteases. The pathological deficiency in CatC is associated with Papillon-Lefèvre syndrome. The patients however do not present marked immunodeficiency despite the absence of active serine proteases in immune defense cells. Hence, the transitory pharmacological blockade of CatC activity in the precursor cells of the bone marrow may represent an attractive therapeutic strategy to regulate activity of serine proteases in inflammatory and immunologic conditions. A variety of CatC inhibitors have been developed both by pharmaceutical companies and academic investigators, some of which are currently being employed and evaluated in preclinical/clinical trials

Low Temperature Dehydration of Alcohols

The dehydration of alcohols is an important step to producing biofuels from biomass, but typically involves very high temperatures. Current low-temperature dehydration reactions use corrosive and volatile acids, do not dehydrate primary alcohols to the corresponding olefins, and do not dissolve biomass starting materials. This study investigates a new catalytic system for the production of alkenes from alcohols using a combined Lewis and Bronstedt acid catalyst in an ionic liquid solvent, which acts as co-catalyst. The effect of various conditions such as temperature, time, solvents, and catalyst identities were optimized. Mechanistic studies, a solubility study, and a substrate scope show good to excellent yields and suggest a novel pathway for alcohol to olefin conversions

A p-curve analysis of the emotional Stroop effect among women with eating disorders

Objective: A recent meta-review of attentional bias research in eating disorders suggests that meta-analyses and systematic reviews include many low-quality and underpowered studies (Stott et al., 2021). As such, we examined whether published research examining the link between attentional bias, using the emotional Stroop task, and eating disorders among women with eating disorders has evidential value (ruling out selective reporting of a statistically significant effect) using a p-curve analysis. A p-curve analysis plots significant p-values onto a curve from .01to .05 to examine its distribution. We hypothesized that the p-curve would be flat, indicating no true effect. Method: The hypothesis, database search strategy, and data analytic approach were pre-registered. The inclusion criteria were reports that compared control and eating disorder groups, reported inferential statistics, and that used body shape/weight or general threat target words. Results: Fifty published reports were included in the p-curve analyses. Unexpectedly, the half and full p-curves were significantly right-skewed, indicating evidential value. However, the results were not robust to the exclusion of the seven lowest p-values and on average, reports were underpowered. There were also 18 reports with null results (they had a p-value greater than .05), which precluded their inclusion in the p-curve analyses. Discussion: The findings suggest that most of the evidence from research examining attentional biases using the emotional Stroop task among women with an eating disorder or with elevated eating disorder symptoms is underpowered and so should be interpreted with considerable caution

"Hands-On" History: An innovative course in history of science to improve undergraduate education

This Interactive Qualifying Project researched and tested the effects of hands-on learning in multidisciplinary courses and the implications of a more interactive classroom on the future of education. Based on research in educational psychology, interactive learning activities were designed and tested in a course at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The research was used to design a course in history and science and sample materials are included.

Abstract task sequence initiation deficit dissociates anxiety disorders from obsessive-compulsive disorder and healthy controls

In everyday life, humans carry out sequences of tasks. Such sequential tasks may be disrupted in those with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Symptoms such as compulsions often cause repetitions of tasks or sequences that disrupt daily living. Such disruptions have been observed experimentally and may be unique to OCD. Deficits in implicitly learned motor sequences have been observed in participants with OCD compared to those with anxiety disorders (ANX). However, the sequences performed in daily life are most often not implicit motor-only sequences. They require completing a series of tasks that do not depend on the motor actions always being the same, such as cooking, and thus could be considered abstract. We tested the hypothesis that OCD participants exhibit a deficit in abstract sequential task performance compared to healthy controls (HCs) and ANX. A transdiagnostic sample of participants with OCD, anxiety, and related disorders and healthy controls completed sequences of simple categorization tasks. Surprisingly, participants with OCD did not perform worse than HCs or ANX. However, ANX participants exhibited significantly higher reaction times throughout the task and at sequence initiation. Further, task switching, a measure of general cognitive control, was similar in ANX participants compared to healthy controls and OCD, suggesting that abstract sequential control was specifically altered in ANX while general cognitive control was preserved. These results implicate abstract sequential control deficits in individuals with anxiety disorders but not in OCD, and further suggest OCD behavior aligns more closely with implicit motor sequence deficits rather than dysfunctional abstract sequential control