Ann Bot
June 2016
Department des Sciences Biologique, Université du Québec à Montréal, Centre-Ville Station, PO Box 8888, Montreal, Qc H3C 3P8, Canada Institute of Temperate Forest Sciences, Université du Québec en Outaouais, 58 Rue Principale, Ripon, Qc J0V1V0, Canada.
Background And Aims: Despite a longstanding interest in variation in tree species vulnerability to ice storm damage, quantitative analyses of the influence of crown structure on within-crown variation in ice accretion are rare. In particular, the effect of prior interception by higher branches on lower branch accumulation remains unstudied. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that intra-crown ice accretion can be predicted by a measure of the degree of sheltering by neighbouring branches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEcol Lett
June 2016
Center for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, PO Box 8888, Centre-ville Station, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada.
Two main effects are proposed to explain biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships: niche complementarity and selection effects. Both can be functionally defined using the functional diversity (FD) and functional identity (FI) of the community respectively. Herein, we present results from the first tree diversity experiment that separated the effect of selection from that of complementarity by varying community composition in high-density plots along a gradient of FD, independent of species richness and testing for the effects of FD and community weighted means of traits (a proxy for FI) on stem biomass increment (a proxy for productivity).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfect Dis Poverty
April 2016
Grupo de Virus Emergentes y Enfermedad, Departamento de Microbiología Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia.
Background: The significant malaria burden in Africa has often eclipsed other febrile illnesses. Burkina Faso's first dengue epidemic occurred in 1925 and the most recent in 2013. Yet there is still very little known about dengue prevalence, its vector proliferation, and its poverty and equity impacts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArch Environ Contam Toxicol
May 2016
Institute of Environmental Sciences and GEOTOP, University of Quebec at Montreal, P.O. Box 8888, Centre-Ville Station, Montreal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada.
The fluctuations of mercury levels (Hg) in fish consumed by sport fishers in North-Eastern America depend upon a plethora of interrelated biological and abiological factors. To identify the dominant factors ultimately controlling fish Hg concentrations, we compiled mercury levels (Hg) during the 1976-2010 period in 90 large natural lakes in Quebec (Canada) for two major game species: northern pike (Esox lucius) and walleye (Sander vitreus). Our statistical analysis included 28 geographic information system variables and 15 climatic variables, including sulfate deposition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
June 2016
Direction de la recherche forestière, Ministère des Forêts de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, 2700 Einstein, Québec, QC G1P 3W8, Canada.
Maple syrup production is an important economic activity in north-eastern North-America. The beginning and length of the production season is linked to daily variation in temperature. There are increasing concerns about the potential impact of climatic change on this industry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNew Phytol
March 2016
Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans-Knöll-Str. 10, 07745, Jena, Germany.
While trees store substantial amounts of nonstructural carbon (NSC) for later use, storage regulation and mobilization of stored NSC in long-lived organisms like trees are still not well understood. At two different sites with sugar maple (Acer saccharum), we investigated ascending sap (sugar concentration, δ(13) C, Δ(14) C) as the mobilized component of stored stem NSC during early springtime. Using the bomb-spike radiocarbon approach we were able to estimate the average time elapsed since the mobilized carbon (C) was originally fixed from the atmosphere and to infer the turnover time of stem storage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Health Serv Res
November 2015
Research Centre, Sainte-Justine University Hospital Centre, 3175 Côte Sainte-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, H3T 1C5, Canada.
Background: School screening programs for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) have been discontinued in Canada and elsewhere because they were not considered cost-effective. In communities lacking such programs, we expect a significant variety of healthcare pathways and timeframes for patient referrals to orthopaedics. The objectives of this study were: 1) to characterise the healthcare pathways of young children with suspected AIS in a population without school screening; and 2) to investigate the relationships between these healthcare pathways and the appropriateness of referrals to specialised orthopaedic clinics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
October 2015
Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal. P.O. Box 6079, Centre-ville Station, H3C 3A7 Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Surface plasmon resonance-based biosensors have been successfully applied to the study of the interactions between macromolecules and small molecular weight compounds. In an effort to increase the throughput of these SPR-based experiments, we have already proposed to inject multiple compounds simultaneously over the same surface. When specifically applied to small molecular weight compounds, such a strategy would however require prior knowledge of the refractive index increment of each compound in order to correctly interpret the recorded signal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNurs Res Pract
September 2015
Faculty of Nursing, University of Montreal, Centre-Ville Station, P.O. Box 6128, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3JT.
The quality and safety of nursing care vary from one service to another. We have only very limited information on the quality and safety of nursing care in outpatient settings, an expanding area of practice. Our aim in this study was to make available, from the scientific literature, indicators potentially sensitive to nursing that can be used to evaluate the performance of nursing care in outpatient settings and to integrate those indicators into the theoretical framework of Dubois et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Health Serv Res
September 2015
IRSPUM, Université de Montréal, P.O. Box 6128, Centre-ville Station, Montreal, QC, H3C 3 J7, Canada.
Background: As part of a national strategy for reaching Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 in Morocco, an action plan covering three systems (sociocultural, educational and professional) was developed to strengthen midwives' professional role in order to contribute to high quality maternity care. This study aimed to understand the implementation process by identifying the characteristics of this intervention and the dimensions of the three-systems which could act as barriers to/facilitators of the implementation process. We used a conceptual framework that builds on Hatem-Asmar's model that describes change in a health professional role; and on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research for our analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
May 2016
Research Laboratory in Applied Metabolic Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, C.P. 6079, Centre-ville Station, Montreal (Quebec), Canada.
CHO cell culture high productivity relies on optimized culture medium management under fed-batch or perfused chemostat strategies enabling high cell densities. In this work, a dynamic metabolic model for CHO cells was further developed, calibrated and challenged using datasets obtained under four different culture conditions, including two batch and two fed-batch cultures comparing two different culture media. The recombinant CHO-DXB11 cell line producing the EG2-hFc monoclonal antibody was studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Public Health
November 2015
School of Public Health, University of Montreal, 7101, Avenue du Parc, 3rd Floor, Montreal, QC, H3N 1X9, Canada.
Objectives: This study describes the current state of research on knowledge transfer strategies to improve public health in low-income countries, to identify the knowledge gaps on this topic.
Methods: In this scoping review, a descriptive and systematic process was used to analyse, for each article retained, descriptions of research context and methods, types of knowledge transfer activities and results reported.
Results: 28 articles were analysed.
Ambio
February 2016
Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Schaenzlestrasse 1, 79104, Freiburg, Germany.
The area of forest plantations is increasing worldwide helping to meet timber demand and protect natural forests. However, with global change, monospecific plantations are increasingly vulnerable to abiotic and biotic disturbances. As an adaption measure we need to move to plantations that are more diverse in genotypes, species, and structure, with a design underpinned by science.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Bot
October 2015
Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St Paul, MN 55108, USA and Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney, Richmond 2753, Australia.
Background And Aims: Litter often decomposes faster in its environment of origin (at 'home') than in a foreign environment ('away'), which has become known as the home-field advantage (HFA). However, many studies have highlighted the conditional nature of the HFA, suggesting that current understanding of this phenomenon is not yet sufficient to generalize across systems.
Methods: The HFA hypothesis was tested for mono-specific and mixed-species litter using a tree-based experiment that manipulated the functional identity and diversity of the host tree community.
Ecol Evol
May 2015
Center for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal P.O. Box 8888, Centre-ville Station, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada ; Institut des Sciences de la Forêt tempérée, Université du Québec en Outaouais 58 Rue Principale, Ripon, QC, JOV 1V0, Canada.
Given evidences that diverse ecosystems provide more services than depauperate ones, much attention has now turned toward finding meaningful and operational diversity indices. We ask two questions: (1) Does phylogenetic diversity contain additional information not explained by functional traits? And (2) What are the strength and nature of the correlation between phylogeny and functional traits according to the evolutionary scale considered? We used data from permanent forest plots of northeastern Canada for which these links have been demonstrated and important functional traits identified. We show that the nature of the relationship between traits and phylogeny varies dramatically among traits, but also according to the evolutionary distance considered.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Health Serv Res
June 2015
Public Health Directorate for Montreal, Montreal Health and Social Services Agency, 1301 Sherbrooke St. East, Montreal, QC, H2L 1 M3, Canada.
Background: Professional development is a key component of effective public health infrastructures. To be successful, professional development programs in public health and health promotion must adapt to practitioners' complex real-world practice settings while preserving the core components of those programs' models and theoretical bases. An appropriate balance must be struck between implementation fidelity, defined as respecting the core nature of the program that underlies its effects, and adaptability to context to maximize benefit in specific situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNurs Res Pract
February 2015
Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine, University of Montreal, CRCHUM, Saint-Antoine Tower, 850 St. Denis Street, Room S03-284, Montreal, QC, Canada H2X 0A9.
Role clarity is a crucial issue for effective interprofessional collaboration. Poorly defined roles can become a source of conflict in clinical teams and reduce the effectiveness of care and services delivered to the population. Our objective in this paper is to outline processes for clarifying professional roles when a new role is introduced into clinical teams, that of the primary healthcare nurse practitioner (PHCNP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActa Diabetol
June 2015
Faculté de Pharmacie, Université de Montréal, PO Box 6128, Centre-Ville Station, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada.
Aims: A population-based cohort study design was used to estimate persistence rate, re-initiation rate after discontinuation, and adherence level among incident users of oral antidiabetics (OADs), and to investigate predictors of non-persistence and non-adherence.
Methods: Incident OAD users were identified using healthcare databases of residents covered by the public drug insurance plan of the Province of Quebec, Canada. Patients initiated OAD therapy between January 2000 and October 2009 and were aged 45-85 years at cohort entry.
J Theor Biol
September 2014
Canada Research Chair in Applied Metabolic Engineering, Canada; Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, P.O. box 6079, Centre-ville Station, Montréal, Québec H3C 3A7, Canada. Electronic address:
In this work, a kinetic-metabolic model previously developed for CHO cells is used to study glycolysis regulation. The model is assessed for its biological relevance by analyzing its ability to simulate metabolic events induced following a hypoxic perturbation. Feedback and feedforward regulatory mechanisms known to occur to either inhibit or activate fluxes of glycolysis, are implemented in various combined scenarios and their effects on the metabolic response were analyzed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Mol Recognit
May 2014
Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, PO Box 6079, Centre-ville Station, H3C 3A7, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
In order to improve the throughput of surface plasmon resonance-based biosensors, an on-line iterative optimization algorithm has been presented aiming at reducing experimental time and material consumption without any loss of confidence on kinetic parameters [De Crescenzo (2008) J. Mol Recognit., 21, 256-66.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOecologia
March 2014
Center for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, P.O. Box 8888, Centre-Ville Station, Montreal, H3C 3P8, Canada.
Increasing concern about loss of biodiversity and its effects on ecosystem functioning has triggered a series of manipulative experiments worldwide, which have demonstrated a general trend for ecosystem functioning to increase with diversity. General mechanisms proposed to explain diversity effects include complementary resource use and invoke a key role for species' functional traits. The actual mechanisms by which complementary resource use occurs remain, however, poorly understood, as well as whether they apply to tree-dominated ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomaterials
January 2014
Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, P.O. Box 6079, Centre-Ville Station, H3C 3A7 Montréal, Québec, Canada; Groupe de Recherche en Science et Technologie Biomédicale (GRSTB), École Polytechnique de Montréal, P.O. Box 6079, Centre-Ville Station, H3C 3A7 Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Neural stem cells (NSCs) provide promising therapeutic potential for cell replacement therapy in spinal cord injury (SCI). However, high increases of cell viability and poor control of cell differentiation remain major obstacles. In this study, we have developed a non-woven material made of co-electrospun fibers of poly L-lactic acid and gelatin with a degradation rate and mechanical properties similar to peripheral nerve tissue and investigated their effect on cell survival and differentiation into motor neuronal lineages through the controlled release of retinoic acid (RA) and purmorphamine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Total Environ
October 2013
Centre for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, PO Box 8888, Centre-Ville Station, Montréal, H3C 3P8, Canada. Electronic address:
Agroforestry is increasingly viewed as an effective means of maintaining or even increasing crop and tree productivity under climate change while promoting other ecosystem functions and services. This study focused on soil biochemical properties and resilience following disturbance within agroforestry and conventional agricultural systems and aimed to determine whether soil differences in terms of these biochemical properties and resilience would subsequently affect crop productivity under extreme soil water conditions. Two research sites that had been established on agricultural land were selected for this study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioprocess Biosyst Eng
April 2013
Canada Research Chair in Applied Metabolic Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Centre-ville Station, Canada.
A kinetic-metabolic model approach describing and simulating Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell behavior is presented. The model includes glycolysis, pentose phosphate pathway, TCA cycle, respiratory chain, redox state and energetic metabolism. Growth kinetic is defined as a function of the major precursors for the synthesis of cell building blocks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Invertebr Pathol
September 2012
Groupe d'étude des protéines membranaires, Université de Montréal, P.O. Box 6128, Centre Ville Station, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7.
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry toxins constitute the active ingredient in the most widely used biological insecticides and insect-resistant transgenic crops. A clear understanding of their mode of action is necessary for improving these products and ensuring their continued use. Accordingly, a long history of intensive research has established that their toxic effect is due primarily to their ability to form pores in the plasma membrane of the midgut epithelial cells of susceptible insects.
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