Malaria diagnostic testing in high transmission settings remains a burden on healthcare systems. Here we present Remoscope, a portable automated imaging cytometer that scans fresh, unstained whole blood using a custom neural network on low-cost hardware. By screening up to two million red blood cells, Remoscope performs label-free quantitative stage-specific detection of () in 1-12 minutes without sample fixation, staining, or slide scanning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLuminescence is ubiquitous in biology research and medicine. Conceptually simple, the detection of luminescence nonetheless faces technical challenges because relevant signals can exhibit exceptionally low radiant power densities. Although low light detection is well-established in centralized laboratory settings, the cost, size, and environmental requirements of high-performance benchtop luminometers are not compatible with geographically-distributed global health studies or resource-constrained settings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOrganoids are powerful models of tissue physiology, yet their applications remain limited due to their relatively simple morphology and high organoid-to-organoid structural variability. To address these limitations we developed a soft, composite yield-stress extracellular matrix that supports optimal organoid morphogenesis following freeform 3D bioprinting of cell slurries at tissue-like densities. The material is designed with two temperature regimes: at 4 °C it exhibits reversible yield-stress behavior to support long printing times without compromising cell viability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of safe access to sufficient clean water in vulnerable communities, renewing interest in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs and related targets under Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6). The purpose of this study was to better understand the obstacles to water access in vulnerable communities and identify ways they might be addressed in five countries in the Mekong Region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam). To this end, qualitative interviews with 50 government officials and development or health experts were complimented with a quantitative survey of the experiences and views of individuals in 15 vulnerable communities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Access to sufficient clean water is important for reducing the risks from COVID-19. It is unclear, however, what influence COVID-19 has had on water insecurities. The objective of this study was to assess the associations between COVID-19 control measures and household water insecurities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFManual microscopic inspection of fixed and stained blood smears has remained the gold standard for Plasmodium parasitemia analysis for over a century. Unfortunately, smear preparation consumes time and reagents, while manual microscopy is skill-dependent and labor-intensive. Here, we demonstrate that deep learning enables both life stage classification and accurate parasitemia quantification of ordinary brightfield microscopy images of live, unstained red blood cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Many clinical supervisors in family medicine feel ill-equipped to teach senior care to their family medicine residents (trainees). We therefore sought to explore their preferred learning strategies for improving their clinical and teaching skills with regard to senior care.
Methods: In this qualitative study, we conducted focus groups and interviews with supervisors from four family medicine clinics, to explore their preferred educational strategies.
We evaluated the performance of the Abbott BinaxNOW rapid antigen test for coronavirus disease 2019 (Binax-CoV2) to detect virus among persons, regardless of symptoms, at a public plaza site of ongoing community transmission. Titration with cultured severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 yielded a human observable threshold between 1.6 × 104-4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe evaluated the performance of the Abbott BinaxNOW™ Covid-19 rapid antigen test to detect virus among persons, regardless of symptoms, at a public plaza site of ongoing community transmission. Titration with cultured clinical SARS-CoV-2 yielded a human observable threshold between 1.6×10-4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo develop collaborative competencies of future health and social services professionals, the Université de Montréal (UdeM) offers interprofessional education (IPE) in partnership with patients. To meet the challenges of IPE, UdeM turned to digital tools to enable interprofessional teams of students to collaborate online and face-to-face. The collaborative flipped classroom for IPE with patient partnership is the conceptual framework for the pedagogical method used for this study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDisabil Rehabil Assist Technol
April 2020
Experimental study. Research is lacking on the Unity suspension system's effect on gait performance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the Unity elevated vacuum system on level walking performance while the vacuum was active (ON) and inactive (OFF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper assesses the significance of stakeholder discourses on uses of water by aquaculture for public policy. Our discourse analysis focuses on the experiences with inland aquaculture in Thailand, drawing from interviews with stakeholders, and evidence in public documents such as newspapers and television news reports. A key finding is that fish farms suffer significant losses from polluted run-off entering water bodies where fish are grown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the last few years, the role of patients in the health system has become essential to improving the quality of care and services. However, the literature shows that patient engagement is not always ideally applied to improve the quality and safety of care and that patient engagement can be tokenistic. Through experiences conducted in Quebec, it is possible to outline a structured process involving both professional stakeholders and patients that illustrates optimal conditions to be applied for successful teamwork involving patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGyrase is an essential bacterial molecular motor that supercoils DNA using a conformational cycle in which chiral wrapping of > 100 base pairs confers directionality on topoisomerization. To understand the mechanism of this nucleoprotein machine, global structural transitions must be mapped onto the nucleotide cycle of ATP binding, hydrolysis and product release. Here we investigate coupling mechanisms using single-molecule tracking of DNA rotation and contraction during Escherichia coli gyrase activity under varying nucleotide conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe assessed clinicians' continuing professional development (CPD) needs at family practice teaching clinics in the province of Quebec. Our mixed methodology design comprised an environmental scan of training programs at four family medicine departments, an expert panel to determine priority clinical situations for senior care, a supervisors survey to assess their perceived CPD needs, and interviews to help understand the rationale behind their needs. From the environmental scan, the expert panel selected 13 priority situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSingle-molecule methods provide direct measurements of macromolecular dynamics, but are limited by the number of degrees of freedom that can be followed at one time. High-resolution rotor bead tracking (RBT) measures DNA torque, twist, and extension, and can be used to characterize the structural dynamics of DNA and diverse nucleoprotein complexes. Here, we extend RBT to enable simultaneous monitoring of additional degrees of freedom.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWeather is suspected to influence fish growth and survival, and be a factor in mass mortality events in cage aquaculture in reservoirs. The purpose of this study was to identify the important climate-related risks faced by cage aquaculture farms; evaluate how these risks were currently being managed; and explore how farmers might adapt to the effects of climate change. Fish farmers were interviewed across the northern region of Thailand to get information on impacts, perceptions and practices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: The object of this study was to determine the impact of only modifying the processing and/or particle size of pig feed on Salmonella shedding and faecal microbiota.
Methods And Results: Pigs were fed a diet that varied only by their processing (pellet or mash) and their particle size (500, 750 or 1250 μm) for 21 days. Salmonella detection in faeces and seroconversion were determined.
Background: Healthcare professionals perform knowledge-intensive work in very specialized disciplines. Across the professional divide, collaboration becomes increasingly difficult. For effective teamwork and collaboration to occur, it is considered necessary for individuals to believe in their ability to draw on their expertise and provide what others need to perform their job well.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFeed characteristics may influence the bacterial community composition and metabolic activities in the pig gastrointestinal tract, known to be associated with positive effects on the gut. Use of mash feed is associated with reduced excretion, but little is known of its effect on the population or of the mechanism of action. Our objectives were to assess the effect of feed texture combined with feed particle size on VFA profiles and levels, total count, and the presence of genes encoding virulence factors of pathogenic strains in the digestive tract along with their impact on pig performance of fattening pigs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe issue on "The Patient Experience in Ontario 2020: What is Possible?" taught us how Ontario is trying to shift to a consistent culture of patient engagement at all levels of its healthcare system, from clinical to organizational and political. In this commentary, the authors share some of the avenues that have been taken in Quebec to structure patient engagement in a comprehensive way within and across stakeholder and patient populations. The model selected in Quebec is based on partnership of care and services, which includes not only patient involvement, but also interprofessional collaboration among professionals (Pomey et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: The approach of the partnership of care and services developed by the direction collaboration dans patient partnership (DCPP) of the Faculty of medicine of the University of Montreal, considers the patient as a full care actor, in the same way as healthcare professionals, his experientiel knowledges are recognized and the patient develops gradually his self-determination. Since 2010, in order to allow cultural changes involved with this approach, the 'Program Partners of Care' (PPC) facilitated resource patient' integration and involvement into Continuous Improvement Committees (CIC), within 29 general and specialized health care teams in 19 health and social services facilities in Quebec, among wich four teams specialized in mental health. The purpose of the article is to describe briefly this approach, to demonstrate that it is successfully applicable to mental health clienteles, under certain conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA promising approach to improve the population's health and the quality of care and services provided by the health system consists of patient engagement at all levels of the health system together with training of health professionals. Since 2010, a new rational model based on the partnership between patients and healthcare professionals has been developed at the University of Montreal's Faculty of Medicine. This patient partnership model is based on the recognition of the patient's experiential knowledge gained from living with a disease, which is complementary to the healthcare professional's scientific knowledge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo prepare future healthcare professionals to collaborate effectively, many universities have developed interprofessional education programs (IPE). Till date, these programs have been mostly courses or clinical simulation experiences. Few attempts have been made to pursue IPE in healthcare clinical settings.
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