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Empathy Development from Childhood to Adolescence Predicts COVID-19 Health Guideline Adherence in Young Adulthood
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic launched global public health campaigns designed to inform the public and enforce strategies aimed at curbing the virus's rapid spread. These campaigns required individuals to act not only in self-interest but also in consideration of others. Personality traits such as empathy may shape how such strategies are perceived and, consequently, whether they are followed. To gain insights into how personality may influence adherence to COVID-19 mitigation strategies, trajectories of empathy from ages 11 to 16 were used to predict the likelihood of following public health recommendations such as hand washing, cancelling travel, avoiding crowds, taking care of cleanliness, and avoiding public places at age 23 when the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic took place. The role of gender was also explored, given well-documented differences in empathy and compliance with public health guidelines. Participants (N = 361) completed annual self-report measures of empathy from ages 11 to 16 and later reported on their COVID-19 preventative behaviour at age 23. As expected, most participants followed a moderate increasing empathy trajectory (53.5%), followed by a high increasing trajectory (33.5%), and a low stable trajectory (13%). Gender significantly predicted adherence, with women reporting greater compliance than men. Additionally, individuals in the high increasing empathy group reported more adherence than those in the low stable group. However, when gender was accounted for, empathy trajectories no longer significantly predicted adherence. A marginally significant interaction between gender and empathy trajectory emerged: among men, those with higher empathy in childhood and adolescence reported greater adherence to COVID-19 guidelines than those with moderate or lower levels of empathy. These findings underscore the value of fostering empathy in childhood and adolescence and suggest that promoting empathy may enhance future public health compliance, particularly among men
Retinal Vessel Characteristics and Eye Disease Pathogenesis: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
No full textRetinal vessel characteristics have been linked to various health and lifestyle factors and age-related eye diseases. However, most studies have been cross-sectional, limiting our understanding of how retinal vessels change over time and the temporality of vascular mechanisms underlying eye disease. Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging Comprehensive Cohort, this research cross-sectionally and longitudinally investigated the relationships between retinal vessel traits and 1) sociodemographic, health, and lifestyle factors, 2) the prevalence and 3-year incidence of glaucoma and changes in intraocular pressure and cup-to-disc ratio, and 3) the prevalence of macular degeneration at baseline and its 3-year incidence. We confirmed that retinal vessel traits are related to factors such as age, blood pressure, and inflammatory markers, and provided additional evidence for a pathogenic role of the retinal vasculature in eye disease development. This research offers a comprehensive analysis with implications for improved treatment and prevention strategies in ophthalmology
Wastewater Monitoring of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Complex, Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, and Mycobacterium bovis
No full textTuberculosis (TB) remains the leading cause of death among infectious diseases, with 1.25 million fatalities reported globally in 2023. The World Health Organization estimates that 10.8 million individuals developed TB in the same year, with Southeast Asia and Africa accounting for the majority of cases. Despite low TB incidence rates overall in Canada, Indigenous populations in Canada, particularly the Inuit of Nunangat, continue to experience disproportionately high incidences of TB, outnumbering all other population groups in the country. Systemic inequalities, including overcrowded housing, food insecurity, and limited access to healthcare, present persistent challenges to equitable TB prevention and management. Current strategies for TB control in remote regions like Inuit Nunangat rely heavily on community-wide screenings and contact tracing. However, logistical barriers, including geographic isolation and insufficient health infrastructure, hinder the effectiveness of these interventions. Additionally, historical trauma associated with TB testing and treatment has led to medical hesitancy among Indigenous communities, further complicating public health monitoring. Wastewater and environmental monitoring (WEM) offers a non-invasive, anonymous alternative for TB monitoring, enabling the early detection of outbreaks without the need for individual clinical diagnoses. Although the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis species (MTBC) in wastewater has been demonstrated, current methodologies such as intercalating dye-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) employ clinical assays that lack the sensitivity and specificity required for wastewater and environmental applications. Moreover, effective WEM implementation, requires an understanding of the partitioning behavior of TB markers in wastewaters to optimize nucleic acid extraction to improve detection and quantification methods, which has not yet been established.
This study focuses on developing and validating probe-based quantitative PCR assays for the detection and quantification of MTBC species, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis, in wastewater. By addressing the sensitivity and specificity challenges in current methodologies, and incorporating partitioning insights, this research aims to provide a foundation for implementing WEM as a disease monitoring system for TB in Northern Indigenous communities, ultimately advancing equitable public health solutions for underserviced, priority populations
« Entre tradition et modernité », L'orientalisme dans la littérature francophone contemporaine : un regard particulier sur le Japon et ses représentations
No full textL'orientalisme est un sujet qui a beaucoup été étudié, en particulier à la fin du XXe siècle avec la nouvelle perspective ajoutée par les travaux de Saïd. Cependant, les recherches à ce sujet ont souvent été circonscrites au Moyen-Orient sans toujours s'étendre de manière aussi approfondie à d'autres régions d'Asie, comme le Japon. Cette recherche s'intéresse ainsi à la manière dont l'archipel est représenté dans la littérature francophone contemporaine, à travers le prisme de l'orientalisme. À partir de l'analyse d'un corpus de cinq oeuvres contemporaines centrées sur l'archipel : Sarinagara de Philippe Forest, Je suis un écrivain japonais de Dany Laferrière, La Nostalgie heureuse d'Amélie Nothomb, Mes années japonaises de René de Ceccatty, et Tout est Ori de Paul Serge Forest, il s'agira de déterminer si les représentations actuelles du Japon reconduisent certaines représentations héritées de l'imaginaire orientaliste ou si, au contraire, elles participent à les remettre en question.
Cette thèse se concentre sur trois éléments principaux relevés au sein des oeuvres : la persistance d'une esthétisation du Japon souvent héritée du japonisme, la mobilisation de stéréotypes nippophobes et nippophiles, et enfin une affinité marquée pour le passé et la tradition. Cette exploration thématique révélera la nature ambivalente des différentes représentations du Japon en constante évolution
Sociodemographic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 serosurveillance studies with diverse recruitment strategies, Canada, 2020 to 2023
No full textAbstract Background Serological testing was a key component of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) surveillance. Social distancing interventions, resource limitations, and the need for timely data led to serosurveillance studies using a range of recruitment strategies, which likely influenced study representativeness. Characterizing representativeness in surveillance is crucial to identify gaps in sampling coverage and to assess health inequities. Methods We retrospectively analyzed three pre-existing longitudinal cohorts, two convenience samples using residual blood, and one de novo probabilistic survey conducted in Canada between April 2020 – November 2023. We calculated study specimen counts by age, sex, urbanicity, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood deprivation quintiles. We derived a ‘representation ratio’ as a simple metric to assess generalizability to a target population and various sociodemographic strata. Results The six studies included 1,327,142 specimens. When stratifying by age group and sex, 67% of racialized minority subgroups were moderately underrepresented (representation ratio < 0.75). Representation was generally higher for older Canadians, urban neighborhoods, and neighborhoods with low material deprivation. Rural representation was highest in a study that used outpatient laboratory blood specimens. Racialized minority representation was highest in a de novo probabilistic survey cohort and an open longitudinal cohort recruited from an online polling panel. Conclusion While no study had adequate representation of all subgroups, less traditional recruitment strategies were more representative of some population dimensions. Understanding demographic representativeness and barriers to recruitment are important considerations when designing population health surveillance studies
The People’s Review protocol: planning an innovative study powered by the public
No full textAbstract Background Systematic reviews provide the best quality evidence about the effectiveness of health treatments. However, systematic reviews and the important role they play in healthcare are not well understood beyond the walls of academia and healthcare. Systematic reviews can help the public make more informed health choices, based on the best available evidence. The People’s Review aims to provide an opportunity to members of the public to plan and complete a full systematic review online in a supportive and engaging manner. It will be a learning-by-doing experience to support the public’s understanding of what reviews are, how they are done, why they matter, and how they can be used to support everyday health decisions. Methods In The People’s Review the public will conduct a full systematic review, deciding the review question, planning the review, working on the parts of the review, and deciding how to share the review findings, in a ‘learning by doing’ process. The review will be conducted online in eight stages using Cochrane Crowd, an existing citizen science platform. The team working behind-the-scenes of The People’s Review will design, produce, and share learning material to support the public’s understanding at each stage of the review. Discussion Involving the public in a systematic review online will enable members of the public to understand and use systematic reviews in everyday health choices. It provides the public with a unique ‘learning by doing’ opportunity to get to grips with what systematic reviews are and how they are produced. This article describes how we plan to involve the public in The People’s Review. It is not a protocol for the systematic review itself – this will be published separately once the project has commenced, and the public have decided the review question.Plain English summary It can be difficult to make health decisions today. We are exposed to a huge amount of information available 24/7 on a smartphone. It is easy to find all sorts of news, figures, and advice about healthcare. However, not everything is reliable. Our decisions should be based on the best evidence available — but how do we find it? A systematic review is a method used by researchers, clinicians, and others to find all the evidence that has been published about a healthcare treatment. Systematic reviews use clear and careful steps to find relevant studies, assess the trustworthiness of the studies, and put together the results of those studies. These steps give us the best evidence available about whether a healthcare treatment works or not. However, the methods of systematic reviews can be complex and hard to understand. The People’s Review is an innovative project that will give the public the opportunity to learn about systematic reviews by doing a systematic review. Anyone can take part and help us do a systematic review together. People will learn about what systematic reviews are, how they work and why they matter. We will support the public throughout, so that everyone will learn new skills. In the end, we will have a systematic review led and conducted by the public. This article describes how we plan to involve the public in all the key stages of The People’s Review through an easy-to-use online platform. Our plans were also formulated and decided with members of the public on the planning group
Tracing the Footprints of Alzheimer’s in the Locus Coeruleus: A Longitudinal Investigation of LC-NE System Integrity and Cognitive Performance Across the AD Spectrum Using a Custom LC NM-MRI Processing Method
No full textAlzheimer’s disease (AD) is increasingly recognized as involving early degeneration of the locus coeruleus (LC), the brain’s primary source of norepinephrine and a key regulator of cognitive functions such as attention and memory. Despite its importance, the progression and consequences of LC deterioration have remained elusive due to challenges in reliably imaging this small brainstem nucleus in vivo. This thesis addresses that gap by employing neuromelanin-sensitive MRI (NM-MRI) and introducing a novel automated LC segmentation technique, the funnel-tip (FT) method, to quantify LC integrity across aging and AD stages.
In the first set of experiments, we validated the FT approach using a cross-sectional cohort (n = 190) across the Alzheimer’s spectrum. The FT method demonstrated high agreement with manual tracing (ICC = 0.91), strong association with AD diagnosis, Braak stage, and cognition, and robust test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.82).
Building on this, we conducted a longitudinal analysis in 266 older adults, including cognitively normal individuals, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and those with AD, followed over four years with annual NM-MRI, PET imaging for amyloid and tau, and neuropsychological testing.
This study’s main findings were that the LC signal declined significantly in early AD (Aβ+, Braak stages 1-3), but remained stable in late stages of AD and healthy aging. Notably, Aβ-negative individuals at baseline exhibited an unexpected LC signal increase linked to early tau accumulation, suggesting a transient biological response before neuronal loss. LC signal was also positively correlated with cognitive performance, particularly in memory and object recognition tasks among AD patients.
In conclusion, this work identifies LC degeneration as a dynamic, early feature of AD and introduces a scalable method for its in vivo assessment. The FT segmentation technique, combined with multimodal biomarkers, enhances our ability to track disease progression and opens new avenues for early diagnosis and intervention in AD
Investigating the Influence of Sleep Behaviours on Cognitive Performance and Aging
No full textBackground: Cognitive reserve (CR) has been associated with better cognitive performance, yet it remains unclear whether sleep behaviours, a lifestyle factor, can serve as a proxy for cognitive reserve. This study aims to identify whether sleep behaviours influence the relationship between brain structure and cognitive performance in the same way in healthy younger and older groups.
Materials and Methods: This study included 81 participants: 41 in the younger group (18–30 years) and 40 in the older group (60+ years). Sleep behaviours were evaluated using self-reported questionnaires, cognitive performance was measured through a neuro-behavioural battery, and brain volume was obtained using MRI scans. Linear modelling examined the moderating effects of sleep behaviours on brain-cognitive performance relationships across age groups.
Results: This study revealed age-related differences in how average sleep hours influence the relationship between brain structure and cognitive performance. Specifically, the interaction between age, sleep behaviours, and brain regions illustrates that sleep serves as a mechanism of cognitive reserve.
Conclusion: Age-specific sleep behaviours influence the relationship between brain structure and cognitive performance. Personalized interventions related to sleep hygiene can enhance cognitive performance in the younger and older groups, potentially mitigating age-related cognitive decline
Physical and Numerical Modeling of Large Marine Microplastics Transport and Deposition
No full textThe prevalence of micro-sized plastic pollution has raised significant concerns for aquatic ecosystems and their inhabitants, including humans, due to its distinct physical and toxicological characteristics. Large microplastics (MPs), primarily synthetic polymers measuring less than 5 mm, pose a considerable threat. According to the literature, rivers alone transport millions of tons of plastic into the ocean annually, regardless of other water bodies. During this transport, MPs undergo physical processes such as advection and diffusion, influenced by atmospheric and hydrological conditions. These processes are driven by larger-scale factors, including windinduced drag, wave drift, and buoyancy, all stemming from currents, geostrophic circulation, and turbulence in extensive water bodies. The inherent properties of MPs—such as size, shape, and density—along with fluid flow characteristics like velocity, depth, and pressure, play crucial roles in determining their transport and deposition patterns. Consequently, this thesis aimed to use physical and numerical modeling
approaches to investigate MPs' transport and deposition under varying hydraulic parameters and bathymetric changes applied to the channel bed. The experimental component of this research involved reviewing existing studies and conducting physical modeling of MPs transport and deposition. Various experimental test scenarios were carried out in a tilting flume at the National Research Council Canada Ocean, Coastal, and River Engineering Research Centre (NRC-OCRE) physical testing facility in Ottawa. Data on MPs transport and deposition were gathered using different physical setups in a straight open-channel flume to assess the effects of flow velocity, water levels, channel geometries, and particle shapes. This study contributed to validating numerical models for MPs transport and deposition. The second part of the research, focusing on numerical modeling, followed three steps: (1) reviewing the literature, (2) using a machine learning (ML) approach to predict MPs transport and deposition dynamics for large spherical and cylindrical MPs, and (3) simulating MPs transport and deposition using a coupled computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method (CFD-DEM). For the first step, a comprehensive review was conducted on the structure of four well-known Lagrangian particle tracking models (D-WAQ PART, Ichthyop, TrackMPD, and CaMPSim-3D) in simulating MPs' fate and transport. Each model was examined in terms of its ability to account for key physical transport processes—such as advection, diffusion, windage, beaching, and washing off—as well as transformation processes like biofouling and degradation, which influence MPs' behavior in the marine environment. Additionally, the review evaluated the effects of MPs' physical properties (mainly size, diameter, and shape) on their fate and trajectories. This analysis identified gaps in particle tracking models, including insufficient consideration of homo- and hetero-aggregation, agglomeration, photodegradation, chemical and biological degradation, and additional advection caused by wave-induced drift. In the second step of the numerical research, an ML-based study was conducted to predict the deposition patterns of spherical and cylindrical MPs using Extreme Learning Machines (ELM) for the first time, based on laboratory datasets. Various test scenarios were performed to collect data on multiple input parameters, including flow velocity, channel bed deepening, channel bed slope, water level, particle shape (spherical or cylindrical), near-bed flow velocity, and particle velocity at deposition. Eleven models, utilizing different dimensionless input combinations derived from Buckingham’s theorem, were evaluated. The best-performing model incorporated all four
dimensionless variables, achieving high accuracy for spherical (R=0.94) and cylindrical (R=0.90) MPs. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the ratio of water depth to particle diameter had the greatest
impact on deposition patterns. This study highlighted the potential of ML in predicting MPs behavior, aiding environmental monitoring and management. In the final step, numerical results were validated against laboratory experiments. A numerical modeling approach was employed to simulate the transport and deposition of spherical MPs under different flow and channel geometry scenarios. The unresolved CFD-DEM method was used for simulations, with results successfully validated through experimental measurements. Additionally, the model effectively captured the influence of hydraulic parameters on MPs deposition
Challenges and opportunities for improving cardiovascular health in women with breast cancer: a review
No full textAbstract Background Breast cancer survivors are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) owing to cancer treatment. Breast cancer and CVD share common risk factors, necessitating CVD risk assessment along with cancer screening. This review aimed to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with promoting cardiovascular health in women with breast cancer. Main text Cardio-oncology is a rapidly developing discipline that focuses on identifying, monitoring, and managing CVD in cancer patients. Preventing and managing CVD in patients with breast cancer involves evaluating risk factors, initiating cardioprotective medications, and implementing cardio-oncology rehabilitation. Major barriers to cardio-oncology prevention and management include inadequate programs, sex/gender-specific issues, financial constraints, underutilization of cardiac rehabilitation (CR), determination of the appropriate time to begin CR, physical limitations, psychological issues, and social and racial disparities. Conclusion A preventive cardio-oncology approach; early identification of cardiotoxicity, CVD risk factors, anxiety, and depression; individualized CR programs; early CR referrals; home/community and virtual CR models; dedicated funding, resources, and personnel; a multidisciplinary team approach; and culturally tailored cardio-oncology care can be beneficial for addressing CVD health challenges and disparities in women with breast cancer