Potential of a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System with Multispectral and Thermal Sensors to Monitor Vineyard Characteristics for Precision Viticulture.

Grapevines are subjected to many physiological and environmental stresses that influence their vegetative and reproductive growth. Water stress, cold damage, and pathogen attacks are highly relevant stresses in many grape-growing regions. Precision viticulture can be used to determine and manage the spatial variation in grapevine health within a single vineyard block.

MTSS implementation in residential and day habilitation settings: A scoping review.

Although Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) has been used in schools, its success has prompted recommendations for its adoption in group home and day habilitation settings. This scoping review examines the literature on implementing MTSS in group home and day habilitation settings for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Of the 15 studies reviewed, most focused on Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) rather than a comprehensive MTSS framework, raising questions about the alignment of interventions with the three-tiered structure of MTSS.

Embedding a culture of research in Canadian community hospitals: a qualitative study.

Background: In Canada, academic hospitals are the principal drivers of research and medical education, while community hospitals provide patient care to a majority of the population. Benefits of increasing community hospital research include improved patient outcomes and access to research, enhanced staff satisfaction and retention and increased research efficiency and generalizability. While the resources required to build Canadian community hospital research capacity have been identified, strategies for strengthening organizational research culture in these settings are not well defined.

Palisade cell geometry in relation to leaf optical and photosynthetic properties in Viburnum.

The optical properties of lobed palisade mesophyll cells remain poorly understood despite their presence in diverse taxa and the critical role of the palisade layer in leaf-light interactions and carbon assimilation. Using micro-computed tomography, 3D ray tracing simulations, and physiological experiments, we tested the interactions between palisade cell geometry, chloroplast localization, light directional quality, and leaf optical and photosynthetic performance in the model taxon Viburnum. Simulations showed that lobed cells shifted between absorptance- or transmittance-dominated states depending on chloroplast localization, irrespective of light directional quality.

The burden of COVID-19 care in community and academic intensive care units in Ontario, Canada: a retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: During the COVID-19 pandemic, neighbourhoods with high material deprivation and high proportions of racialized Canadians were disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Many of these neighbourhoods were served by community hospitals. We sought to compare the burden of COVID-19 care in community and academic intensive care units (ICUs) in Ontario, Canada.

Development and Implementation of a Climate Change and Health Curriculum Into Pediatric Residency Education.

There is an increasing body of evidence demonstrating the impacts of climate change on health. Physicians recognize the significance but feel unprepared to address it. Despite a call to action from prominent medical organizations, climate change and health (CCH) education has remained sparse.

Advancing Surgical Precision in Z-Plasty and Melanoma Excision Through Quality Improvement Initiatives in Rural Settings.

Rural healthcare provider shortages have a severe impact on Canadians who seek care in rural and remote (R&R) settings, often arriving with poor health or medical emergencies. Healthcare providers working in such settings often face significant challenges in accessing skills development and maintenance courses to meet the unique medical demands of rural communities. As a result, it is vital to provide R&R healthcare providers with the appropriate simulation-based skills training.

Perioperative immunotherapy in urothelial carcinoma: AMBASSADOR charts the path forward.

The AMBASSADOR trial revealed improvement in disease-free survival with adjuvant pembrolizumab in patients with high-risk muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma compared to observation. In this Viewpoint, we discuss the clinical implications of these findings in the context of prior data from the CheckMate-274 and the recently published NIAGARA trial, envisioning the path forward for perioperative immunotherapy.

Real-World Effectiveness of Tildrakizumab for Moderate-to-Severe Plaque Psoriasis in Canada.

Background: Tildrakizumab is an interleukin-23 inhibitor approved in Canada in 2021 for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

Objectives: To evaluate real-world effectiveness of tildrakizumab for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in Canada.

Methods: A multicenter, retrospective study was conducted in Canada in adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis for ≥1 year treated with tildrakizumab for ≥12 weeks.

Factors influencing community intensive care unit research participation: a qualitative descriptive study.

Purpose: Community hospitals account for 90% of hospitals in Canada, but clinical research is mainly conducted in academic hospitals. Increasing community hospital research participation can improve generalizability of study results, while also accelerating study recruitment and increasing staff engagement. We aimed to identify and describe the factors that influence community intensive care unit (ICU) research participation and the development, implementation, and sustainability of a community ICU research program.

Effect of omalizumab on inflammatory markers in COVID-19: an exploratory analysis of the COVID-19 immunologic antiviral therapy with omalizumab (CIAO) trial.

Background: The CIAO trial recently demonstrated a probable clinical benefit of omalizumab in the treatment of severe COVID-19; however, the mechanism underlying this benefit remains unclear. Therefore, we sought to longitudinally assess the impact of omalizumab on serum cytokines in CIAO trial patients to determine its mechanism of action.

Methods: Blood samples were collected on days 0, 2, 7, and 14 from patients recruited into the CIAO trial and who consented to this substudy.

Community versus academic hospital community-acquired pneumonia patients: a nested cohort study.

Background: Most Canadians receive their care in community hospitals, yet most clinical research is conducted in academic hospitals. This study aims to compare patients with community acquired pneumonia (CAP) treated in academic and community hospitals with respect to their demographics, clinical characteristics, treatments and outcomes.

Methods: This nested observational cohort substudy of the Community Acquired Pneumonia: Toward InnoVAtive Treatment (CAPTIVATE) trial included 1,329 hospitalized adults with CAP recruited between March 1st, 2018 and September 31st, 2023 from 15 Canadian hospitals.

A high-throughput approach for quantifying turgor loss point in grapevine.

Quantifying drought tolerance in crops is critical for agriculture management under environmental change, and drought response traits in grape vine have long been the focus of viticultural research. Turgor loss point (π) is gaining attention as an indicator of drought tolerance in plants, though estimating π often requires the construction and analysis of pressure-volume (P-V) curves which are very time consuming. While P-V curves remain a valuable tool for assessing π and related traits, there is considerable interest in developing high-throughput methods for rapidly estimating π, especially in the context of crop screening.

De Novo Long-Read Genome Assembly and Annotation of the Mosquito Gut-Dwelling Fungus, Smittium minutisporum.

Mosquito guts host a variety of microbes, yet fungi are often overlooked. Smittium (Harpellales, Zoopagomycota) comprises numerous species that are obligate symbionts residing in the hindgut of mosquito larvae. Despite their association with pathogen-bearing vectors, these fungal symbionts remain understudied, largely due to the lack of high-quality genome resources.

Antibiotic Treatment for 7 versus 14 Days in Patients with Bloodstream Infections.

Background: Bloodstream infections are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Early, appropriate antibiotic therapy is important, but the duration of treatment is uncertain.

Methods: In a multicenter, noninferiority trial, we randomly assigned hospitalized patients (including patients in the intensive care unit [ICU]) who had bloodstream infection to receive antibiotic treatment for 7 days or 14 days.

Important features of hospitals, intensive care unit waiting rooms, and patient care rooms: perspectives of intensive care unit visitors.

Purpose: Family members of critically ill patients spend significant periods of time in the intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital environment. We aimed to identify what services, resources, and conveniences are important to adult ICU visitors.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study including visitors in four adult ICUs in the province of Ontario, Canada.

Bevacizumab First in DRCR Protocol AC vs Real-World Physician Treatment Choice for Diabetic Macular Edema: Two-Year Cost Analysis.

To compare the modeled costs of the Protocol AC bevacizumab-first treatment protocol (with a switch to aflibercept for sub-responders) with real-world costs for treatment-naïve patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) over a 2-year period. Published data from the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR) Protocol AC bevacizumab-first arm (154 eyes) were used to model 2-year treatment costs. Real-world costs were modeled using data from the Vestrum Health electronic medical records database from a 2016 to 2018 cohort of treatment-naïve eyes with DME (n = 1062) treated with antivascular endothelial growth factor monotherapy.

Enhancing data standards to advance translation in spinal cord injury.

Data standards are available for spinal cord injury (SCI). The International SCI Data Sets were created in 2002 and there are currently 27 freely available. In 2014 the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke developed clinical common data elements to promote clinical data sharing in SCI.

Research priorities for the study of atrial fibrillation during acute and critical illness: recommendations from the Symposium on Atrial Fibrillation in Acute and Critical Care.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia encountered in acute and critical illness and is associated with poor short and long-term outcomes. Given the consequences of developing AF, research into prevention, prediction and treatment of this arrhythmia in the critically ill are of great potential benefit, however, study of AF in critically ill patients faces unique challenges, leading to a sparse evidence base to guide management in this population. Major obstacles to the study of AF in acute and critical illness include absence of a common definition, challenges in designing studies that capture complex etiology and assess causality, lack of a clear outcome set, difficulites in recruitment in acute environments with respect to timing, consent, and workflow, and failure to embed studies into clinical care platforms and capitalize on emerging technologies.

Adiposity and Muscle Strength in Men With Prostate Cancer and Cardiovascular Outcomes.

Background: There are limited data on the physical effects of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer (PC), and on the relationships of such measures of adiposity and strength to cardiovascular outcomes.

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the relationships of measures of adiposity and strength to cardiovascular outcomes (cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, arterial revascularization, peripheral arterial disease, and venous thromboembolism) in patients with PC. A secondary objective was to characterize the relationships between ADT use and 12-month changes in these physical measures.