Peter Pennefather

University of Toronto | U of T

People read human characteristics into the design of social robots, a visual process with socio-cultural implications. One factor may be nationality, a complex social characteristic that is linked to ethnicity, culture, and other factors of identity that can be embedded in the visual design of robots. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), we expl...

People read human characteristics into the design of social robots, a visual process with socio-cultural implications. One factor may be nationality, a complex social characteristic that is linked to ethnicity, culture, and other factors of identity that can be embedded in the visual design of robots. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), we expl...

Voice is a natural mode of expression offered by modern computer-based systems. Qualitative perspectives on voice-based user experiences (voice UX) offer rich descriptions of complex interactions that numbers alone cannot fully represent. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on qualitative approaches to voice UX, capturing the nature...

Objective People adjusting to living with a chronic disability, such as chronic pain, seek support and resources from societal systems, including health systems, to help them cope with this reality. This case study describes the use of a digital health platform designed to help in that quest. Method MyHealthMyRecord (MHMR), is being developed to r...

Gender is increasingly being explored as a social characteristic ascribed to robots by people. Yet, research involving social robots that may be gendered tends not to address gender perceptions, such as through pilot studies or manipulation checks. Moreover, research that does address gender perceptions has been limited by a reliance on the human g...

Gender is increasingly being explored as a social characteristic ascribed to robots by people. Yet, research involving social robots that may be gendered tends not to address gender perceptions, such as through pilot studies or manipulation checks. Moreover, research that does address gender perceptions has been limited by a reliance on the human g...

Gender is a primary characteristic by which people organize themselves. Previous research has shown that people tend to unknowingly ascribe gender to robots based on features of their embodiment. Yet, robots are not necessarily ascribed the same, or any, gender by different people. Indeed, robots may be ascribed non-human genders or used as "gender...

Gender is a social framework through which people organize themselves-and non-human subjects, including robots. Research stretching back decades has found evidence that people tend to gender artificial agents unwittingly, even with the slightest cue of humanlike features in voice, body, role, and other social features. This has led to the notion of...

Gender is a social framework through which people organize themselves-and non-human subjects, including robots. Research stretching back decades has found evidence that people tend to gender artificial agents unwittingly, even with the slightest cue of humanlike features in voice, body, role, and other social features. This has led to the notion of...

Gender is a primary characteristic by which people organize themselves. Previous research has shown that people tend to unknowingly ascribe gender to robots based on features of their embodiment. Yet, robots are not necessarily ascribed the same, or any, gender by different people. Indeed, robots may be ascribed non-human genders or used as "gender...

Artificial intelligences (AI) are increasingly being embodied and embedded in the world to carry out tasks and support decision-making with and for people. Robots, recommender systems, voice assistants, virtual humans—do these disparate types of embodied AI have something in common? Here we show how they can manifest as “socially embodied AI.” We d...

Social robots, conversational agents, voice assistants, and other embodied AI are increasingly a feature of everyday life. What connects these various types of intelligent agents is their ability to interact with people through voice. Voice is becoming an essential modality of embodiment, communication, and interaction between computer-based agents...

Artificial intelligences (AI) are increasingly being embodied and embedded in the world to carry out tasks and support decision-making with and for people. Robots, recommender systems, voice assistants, virtual humans - do these disparate types of embodied AI have something in common? Here we show how they can manifest as "socially embodied AI." We...

UNSTRUCTURED Modern forms of technology-augmented healthcare are focusing on personalization of the delivery of medical services. This trend is driven in part by the growing rhetoric around patient diversity, empowerment, and choice as factors that impact the success of care. In parallel, there is a push for applying the latest advances in AI-based...

An increasing proportion of the global chronic pain population is managed through services delivered by specialized pain clinics in global cities. This paper describes the results of a survey of pain clinic leaders in three global cities on barriers influencing chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) management provided by those clinics. It demonstrates a pr...

An extended design and evaluation framework of eudaimonia (personal growth, expressiveness) and hedonia (pleasure, comfort) was applied to a cooperative game for older adults who rely on power mobility. The purpose was to address two psychosocial well-being needs (perceptions of performance mastery and empathy enhancement) through a game with an in...

People with complex chronic conditions must learn to live with the disabilities and challenges that come with those conditions on a continuous basis. MyHealthMyRecord (MHMR) was designed to allow people to record video vignettes of enabling and/or disabling situations, opinions, musings, and other thoughts regarding their attempts to cope with, man...

Flourishment is conceptualized as an engagement experience associated with eudaimonic flourishing, a component of psychological wellbeing. Analogous to nourishment, flourishment drives a sense of being one’s authentic best self (eudaimonia) in a way that can be deliberately encouraged and registered within health systems, and their records, by desi...

Background and purpose: A continuing education (CE) course in thrombosis management for pharmacists was developed through the Office of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) at the University of Toronto to address pharmacists' needs for the knowledge and skills to provide care to patients receiving anticoagulants. This article describes the de...

The study aimed to assess gender differences among Kuwaiti adolescents in healthy living choices that impact the risk of obesity. A cross-sectional multistage cluster design was employed with a representative sample of 2672 students aged 13-15 years who completed a self-administered Global School-based Student Health (GSHS) survey. The study found...

Chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) affects people everywhere in the world, but people in developing countries have far less access to therapies that provide relief. There are often missed opportunities to implement these therapies. Karachi shares many characteristics with megacities of the global south and represents Pakistan in the global city league....

Older powered chair users’ perceptions on and attitudes towards mixed reality and modern facilitating technologies, such as tablets and smartphones, was explored to inform the design of mixed reality games that involve power mobility. Eleven older powered chair users (aged 55 and over) were interviewed in focus groups about their knowledge of, adop...

Introduction: This study provides an overview on the potential targets of RAS system which could represent a valuable therapeutic regimen for the management of liver disorders. The current review aimed to outline the functions of the RAS in the context of the oxidative stress-associated liver disease. Areas covered: The renin angiotensin system...

We have shown how data quanta can be recorded as a value and recording-record pair. That recording-record can be made sufficiently detailed so that reproducibility and meaning of each value is evident. Only then does a value become data. Our open source BioTIFF platform, now allows each value generated by an instrument to be stored together with it...

The experience of chronic pain is universal, yet pain management services delivered by health professionals vary substantially depending on the context and patient. This review is a part of a series that examined the issue of chronic non-cancer pain services and management in different global cities. The review was structured as a case study of ava...

For older adults, adopting a powered mobility aid signals a life transition that affects several well-being factors: their self-image, motivation, and self-perception of ability, but also how other people - friends, family, coworkers, strangers - relate to and perceive these individuals. We present initial findings from a user study in which we (a)...

The past decade has seen the emergence of well-being/quality of life as a strand of inquiry in human factors research that has expanded the field’s reach to matters beyond fit, functionality and usability. This effort has been spearheaded by “hedonomics,” a human factors conceptualization of well-being that reflects the philosophical notion of hedo...

This study designed and applied accessible yet systematic methods to generate baseline information about the patterns and structure of Canada's neglected tropical disease (NTD) research network; a network that, until recently, was formed and functioned on the periphery of strategic Canadian research funding. MULTIPLE METHODS WERE USED TO CONDUCT TH...

Competency models have been widely employed within education, training and development contexts. In particular, medical education programs have become a platform of exploration around innovations in competency-based assessment. Approaches that employ dynamic, flexible models in a social context are now being sought. In this paper, we present the de...

A large fraction of anti-malaria medicines (and indeed many other medicines classes) used in developing countries are inadequately identified. Framing this problem as one of misidentification rather than the more common framing of criminal misrepresentation leads to new solutions sets not currently being considered. That reframing led to considerat...

Last year we described how BioTIFF code (www.biotiff.org) enables all metadata needed to interpret a given digital image region to be embedded within the same file structure used to store that image (Biophys J. 96: 30a). Here we show how that metadata can then be indexed so that Google-like queries can be performed on any set of BioTIFF files. Inde...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is linked to the self-association of amyloid-b peptide (Ab), a protein of 39-43 amino acids that is normally soluble in the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid. Although large, fibrillar aggregates were long thought to be the pathogenic agents, recent evidence indicates that soluble Ab oligomers are more closely linked to diseas...

Deficits in clinical microbiology infrastructure exacerbate global infectious disease burdens. This paper examines how commodity computation, communication, and measurement products combined with open-source analysis and communication applications can be incorporated into laboratory medicine microbiology protocols. Those commodity components are al...

Minimal pain content has been documented in pre-licensure curricula and students lack important pain knowledge at graduation. To address this problem, we have implemented and evaluated a mandatory Interfaculty Pain Curriculum (IPC) yearly since 2002 for students (N=817 in 2007) from six Health Science Faculties/Departments. The 20-h pain curriculum...

Massive production of free radicals (FR) has been associated with a variety of pathological conditions in the central nervous system (CNS). We have used the FR generating compound hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures to model oxidative injury in the brain. Necrotic cell death was monitored for up to 48 h using propidiu...

Introduction: Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is responsible for the smell of rotten eggs. It is an environmental and industrial pollutant that at high concentrations (more than 150 ppm) is highly toxic and often fatal. Physiological concentrations of H2S (10 - 130 M) have recently been suggested to have an intracellular signaling role (Wang, R., The gasotr...

Much of the disease burden in North America is due to chronic illnesses that need to be managed at either an individual or a population level. People living with chronic diseases account for 75 per cent of health care expenditures in the United States (Hoffman et al., 1996). To both define and judge care outcomes and guide adaptation of the health...

Giemsa staining of thick blood smears remains the "gold standard" for detecting malaria. However, this method is not very good for diagnosing low-level infections. A method for the simultaneous staining of Plasmodium-parasitized culture and blood smears for both bright field and fluorescence was developed and its ability to improve detection effici...

Impaired regulation of intracellular calcium is thought to adversely affect synaptic plasticity and cognition in the aged brain. Comparing young (2-3 months) and aged (23-26 months) Fisher 344 rats, stratum radiatum-evoked CA1 field EPSPs were smaller and long-term potentiation (LTP) was diminished in aged hippocampal slices. Resting calcium, in pr...

The Laboratory for Collaborative Diagnostics works in the field of Collaborative Diagnostics. A definition of Collaborative Diagnostics is found at www.lcd.utoronto.ca. The Malaria TV project is an application of our Collaborative Digital Microscope project described in greater detail at the link (www.lcd.utoronto.ca/collaborativedigitalmicroscope....

The antipsychotic phenothiazines may have other therapeutic applications because of their ability to kill bacteria, plasmids and tumor cells. They are also known to undergo a peroxidase-catalysed oxidation to form cation radicals that are stable at acid pH, but are not detected at a neutral pH. The objective of this project was to determine whether...

A number of scavengers of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were found to be protective against cell death induced by hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in isolated hepatocytes. The H2O2 scavengers alpha-ketoglutarate and pyruvate, which also act as energy substrate metabolites, were more protective against H2S toxicity than lactate which is only an energy substra...

We previously reported on a novel system termed Lipobead that consists of hydrogel beads encased within an anchored lipid bilayer. The hydrogel particles are formed by inverse suspension polymerization of dimethylacrylamide with N,N'-ethylenebis(acrylamide). During the polymerization stage, the water in oil emulsion is interfacially stabilized by s...

The overall objective of our work was to make a hydrogel-supported phospholipid bilayer that models a cytoskeleton-supported cell membrane and provides a platform for studying membrane biology. Previously, we demonstrated that a pre-Lipobead, consisting of phospholipids covalently attached to the surface of a hydrogel, could give rise to a Lipobead...

We have determined the underlying sites of H(2)O(2) generation by isolated rat brain mitochondria and how these can shift depending on the presence of respiratory substrates, electron transport chain modulators and exposure to stressors. H(2)O(2) production was determined using the fluorogenic Amplex red and peroxidase system. H(2)O(2) production w...

Pain education, especially for undergraduates, has been identified as important to changing problematic pain practices, yet, no published data were found describing an integrated, interprofessional pain curriculum for undergraduate students. Therefore, this project aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate an integrated pain curriculum, based on th...

Lipobeads are hydrogel beads surrounded by a lipid bilayer membrane and have been developed to act as a cell analogue. The FLAG-tagged M(2) muscarinic receptor was incorporated onto the surface of the Lipobead by incubating pre-Lipobeads with proteoliposomes containing the receptor. Receptors reconstituted onto the surface of the Lipobeads were fun...

Elevated basal intracellular calcium (Ca(2+)) levels ([Ca(2+)](B)) in B lymphoblast cell lines (BLCLs) from bipolar I disorder (BD-I) patients implicate altered Ca(2+) homeostasis in this illness. Chronic lithium treatment affects key proteins modulating intracellular Ca(2+) signaling. Thus, we sought to determine if chronic exposure to therapeutic...

In monolayers of cultured rat astrocytes a number of agents that induce oxidative stress act synergistically with exposure to copper leading to rapid depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane potential (Psi m) and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Copper sensitized astrocytes to the action of menadione, an intracellular generat...

Mitochondrial membrane potential (Deltapsi(M)) plays a key role in coordinating mitochondrial function and cell biology in general. In astrocytes, Deltapsi(M) is an important indicator of the health of these brain cells and their response to traumatic and hypoxic injury. We have shown previously how fluorescent signals can be measured from cells at...

In the hippocampus, two distinct forms of GABAergic inhibition have been identified, phasic inhibitory postsynaptic currents that are the consequence of the vesicular release of GABA and a tonic conductance that is activated by low ambient concentrations of extracellular GABA. It is not known what accounts for the distinct properties of receptors t...

The effect of anesthetic drugs at central synapses can be described quantitatively by developing kinetic models of ligand-gated ion channels. Experiments have shown that the hypnotic propofol and the sedative benzodiazepine midazolam have similar effects on single inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) but very different effects on slow desensi...

We have synthesized a phospholipid−hydrogel conjugate that appears to drive the self-assembly of lipid membranes. A one-step radical polymerization synthesis of the conjugate was devised using lipid anchors that contain a fluorescent marker and a reactive vinyl group. The anchors preferentially located at oil−water interfaces during hydrogel format...

In pancreatic beta-cells, glucose metabolism signals insulin secretion by altering the cellular array of messenger molecules. ATP is particularly important, given its role in regulating cation channel activity, exocytosis, and events dependent upon its hydrolysis. Uncoupling protein (UCP)-2 is proposed to catalyze a mitochondrial inner-membrane H(+...

We examine how synaptic depression resulting from desensitization (as modelled by a kinetic scheme for GABAA synapses), affects the coherent frequency produced by inhibitory networks. Analytical work using a phenomenological model of synaptic depression shows that different mechanisms are invoked in determining the synchronized frequency. Numerical...

gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter, activates a persistent low amplitude tonic current in several brain regions in addition to conventional synaptic currents. Here we demonstrate that GABA(A) receptors mediating the tonic current in hippocampal neurons exhibit functional and pharmacological properties differen...

Real synaptic systems consist of a nonuniform population of synapses with a broad spectrum of probability and response distributions varying between synapses, and broad amplitude distributions of postsynaptic unitary responses within a given synapse. A common approach to such systems has been to assume identical synapses and recover apparent quanta...

ATP-sensitive potassium (K(ATP)) channels are heteromultimer complexes of subunits from members of the inwardly rectifying K(+) channel and the ATP-binding cassette protein superfamilies. K(ATP) channels couple metabolic state to membrane excitability, are distributed widely, and participate in a variety of physiological functions. Understood best...

ATP-sensitive potassium (K-ATP) channels are heteromultimer complexes of subunits from members of the inwardly rectifying K+ channel and the ATP-binding cassette protein superfamilies. K-ATP channels couple metabolic state to membrane excitability, are distributed widely, and participate in a variety of physiological functions. Understood best in p...

Propofol (2,6-di-isopropylphenol) has multiple actions on GABA(A) receptor function that act in concert to potentiate GABA-evoked currents. To understand how propofol influences inhibitory IPSCs, we examined the effects of propofol on responses to brief applications of saturating concentrations of GABA (1-30 mM). GABA was applied using a fast perfu...

The central muscarinic cholinergic system plays a critical role in cognitive functions, and impairment of this system has been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer disease (Everitt and Robbins 1997; Whitehouse et al. 1981; Winkler et al. 1995; Wurtman 1992; Zola-Morgan and Squire 1993). Despite the accumulating evidence showi...

We have examined the development of expression of group I and II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) in pure rat spinal cord astrocyte cultures, using immunocytological and calcium imaging techniques. mGluR1alpha and mGluR2/3 antibodies were found to label roughly 10% of the total astrocyte population at all time points examined, whereas mGlu...

Hippocampal neurons exhibit a slow afterhyperpolarization following membrane depolarization; this is thought to reflect an underlying Ca²⁺-dependent K⁺ current. This current is potentiated by intermediate concentrations (0.1–1.0 mM) of exogenous Ca²⁺ buffer [Schwindt P. C. et al. (1992) Neuroscience 47, 571–578; Tymianski M. et al. (1993) Neuron 11...

Human Immunodeficiency Virus I (HIV-I) predominantly infects brain macrophages and microglia in the central nervous system. Multiple carrier-mediated transport systems can be involved in the permeation of nucleoside analog drugs across the membranes of a number of cells. Previous data from our laboratory using the nucleoside probe uridine, suggest...

The primary targets of productive HIV-I infection in the central nervous system are brain macrophages and microglia. ZDV, a thymidine derivative, has been shown to improve the clinical and neuropsychological functions in HIV demented patients. The objective of this study is to characterize the uptake properties of ZDV by a continuous microglia cell...

A voltage-gated K+ conductance resembling that of the human ether-à-go-go-related gene product (HERG) was studied using whole-cell voltage-clamp recording, and found to be the predominant conductance at hyperpolarized potentials in a cell line (MLS-9) derived from primary cultures of rat microglia. Its behavior differed markedly from the classical...

A simple kinetic model is presented to explain the gating of a HERG-like voltage-gated K+ conductance described in the accompanying paper (Zhou, W., F.S. Cayabyab, P.S. Pennefather, L.C. Schlichter, and T.E. DeCoursey. 1998. J. Gen. Physiol. 111:781-794). The model proposes two kinetically distinct closing pathways, a rapid one favored by depolariz...

The N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) subtype of glutamate receptor is blocked by ketamine, and this action likely contributes to ketamine's anesthetic and analgesic properties. Previous studies suggest that ketamine occludes the open channel by binding to a site located within the channel pore. This hypothesis was examined by investigating the effects o...

Chemical synaptic transmission is a fundamental component of interneuronal communications in the central nervous system (CNS). Discharge of a presynaptic vesicle containing a few thousand molecules (a quantum) of neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft generates a transmitter concentration signal that drives postsynaptic ion-channel receptors. The...

1. We have studied macroscopic current fluctuations associated with the after-hyperpolarization current (IAHP) that follows a 200 ms voltage-clamp step to 0 mV in dentate granule (DG) neurones of the rat hippocampus. This maximally effective stimulus produced a peak IAHP of 205 +/- 20 pA. Background noise was minimized by using the whole-cell singl...

Previously, we reported that the spike frequency adaptation and slow afterhyperpolarizations (sAHP) in hippocampal pyramidal neurones are best preserved during whole-cell recording with a methylsulfate (MeSO4–)- based internal solution, but undergo a fast rundown when gluconate- (Gluc–)- based internal solution is used. Here we show, with internal...

A new vesicle system is described that combines complementary properties of liposomes and polymeric beads. 'Lipobeads' consist of a lipid bilayer shell anchored on the surface of a hydrogel polymer cores which acts like a cytoskeleton. Anchoring is provided by fatty acids covalently attached to the surface of the hydrogel. These hydrophobic chains...

1. Activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) inhibits a transient Ca(2+)-activated K+ current (IAHP) responsible for the slow after-hyperpolarization that follows depolarizations of dentate granule neurones in rat hippocampal brain slices. Here we show for the first time that this physiological consequence of mGluR stimulation is sele...