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© 2018 The Author(s). Background: There is a significant deficiency of national health information for Indigenous peoples in Canada. This manuscript describes the Community Profile Survey (CPS), a community-based, national-level survey designed to identify and describe existing healthcare delivery, funding models, and diabetes specific infrastructure and programs in Indigenous communities. Methods: The CPS was developed collaboratively through FORGE AHEAD and the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada. Regional and federal engagement and partnerships were built with Indigenous organizations to establish regionally-tailored distribution of the 8-page CPS to 440 First Nations communities. Results were collected (one survey per community) and reported in strata by region, with descriptive analyses performed on all variables. Results were shared with participating communities and regional/federal partners through tailored reports. Results: A total of 84 communities completed the survey (19% response rate). The majority of communities had a health centre/office to provide service to their patients with diabetes, with limited on-reserve hospitals for ambulatory or case-sensitive conditions. Few healthcare specialists were located on-site, with patients frequently travelling off-site (> 40 km) for diabetes-related complications. The majority of healthcare professionals on-site were Health Directors, Community Health Nurses, and Home Care Nurses. Many communities had a diabetes registry but few reported a diabetes surveillance system. Regional variation in healthcare services, diabetes programs, and funding models were noted, with most communities engaging in some type of innovative strategy to improve care for patients with diabetes. Conclusions: The CPS is the first community-based, national-level survey of its kind in Canada. Although the response rate was low, the CPS was distributed and successfully administered across a broad range of First Nations communities, and future considerations would benefit from a governance structure and leadership that strengthens community engagement, and a longitudinal research approach to increase the representativeness of the data. This type of information is important for communities and regions to inform decision making (maintain successes, and identify areas for improvement), strengthen health service delivery and infrastructure, increase accessibility to healthcare personnel, and allocate funding and/or resources to build capacity and foster a proactive chronic disease prevention and management approach for Indigenous communities across Canada. Trial registration: Current ClinicalTrial.gov protocol ID NCT02234973. Registered: September 9, 2014.

Objective:\ud \ud Exposure to repetitive concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), has been linked with increased risk of long-term neurodegenerative changes, specifically chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). To date, preclinical studies largely have focused on the immediate aftermath of mTBI, with no literature on the lifelong consequences of mTBI in these models. This study provides the first account of lifelong neurobehavioral and histological consequences of repetitive mTBI providing unique insight into the constellation of evolving and ongoing pathologies with late survival.\ud Methods:\ud \ud Male C57BL/6J mice (aged 2–3 months) were exposed to either single or repetitive mild TBI or sham procedure. Thereafter, animals were monitored and assessed at 24 months post last injury for measures of motor coordination, learning deficits, cognitive function, and anxiety-like behavior prior to euthanasia and preparation of the brains for detailed neuropathological and protein biochemical studies.\ud Results:\ud \ud At 24 months survival animals exposed to r-mTBI showed clear evidence of learning and working memory impairment with a lack of spatial memory and vestibule-motor vestibulomotor deficits compared to sham animals. Associated with these late behavioral deficits there was evidence of ongoing axonal degeneration and neuroinflammation in subcortical white matter tracts. Notably, these changes were also observed after a single mTBI, albeit to a lesser degree than repetitive mTBI.\ud Interpretation:\ud \ud In this context, our current data demonstrate, for the first time, that rather than an acute, time limited event, mild TBI can precipitate a lifelong degenerative process. These data therefore suggest that successful treatment strategies should consider both the acute and chronic nature of mTBI.

Contains fulltext : 174756.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) INTRODUCTION: Worldwide induction and cesarean delivery rates have increased rapidly, with consequences for subsequent pregnancies. The majority of intrapartum cesarean deliveries are performed for failure to progress, typically in nulliparous women at term. Current uterine registration techniques fail to identify inefficient contractions leading to first-stage labor arrest. An alternative technique, uterine electromyography has been shown to identify inefficient contractions leading to first-stage arrest of labor in nulliparous women with spontaneous onset of labor at term. The objective of this study was to determine whether this finding can be reproduced in induction of labor. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Uterine activity was measured in 141 nulliparous women with singleton term pregnancies and a fetus in cephalic position during induced labor. Electrical activity of the myometrium during contractions was characterized by its power density spectrum. RESULTS: No significant differences were found in contraction characteristics between women with induced labor delivering vaginally with or without oxytocin and women with arrested labor with subsequent cesarean delivery. CONCLUSION: Uterine electromyography shows no correlation with progression of labor in induced labor, which is in contrast to spontaneous labor.

International audience; Training based on rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) can improve gait in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD). Patients typically walk faster and exhibit greater stride length after RAS. However, this effect is highly variable among patients, with some exhibiting little or no response to the intervention. These individual differences may depend on patients' ability to synchronize their movements to a beat. To test this possibility, 14 IPD patients were submitted to RAS for four weeks, in which they walked to music with an embedded metronome. Before and after the training, patients' synchronization was assessed with auditory paced hand tapping and walking to auditory cues. Patients increased gait speed and stride length in non-cued gait after training. However, individual differences were apparent as some patients showed a positive response to RAS and others, either no response, or a negative response. A positive response to RAS was predicted by the synchronization performance in hand tapping and gait tasks. More severe gait impairment, low synchronization variability, and a prompt response to a stimulation change foster a positive response to RAS training. Thus, sensorimotor timing skills underpinning the synchronization of steps to an auditory cue may allow predicting the success of RAS in IPD.

We revisit the mechanism leading to the photoresponse of locally illuminated single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) films deposited on substrates. Our study examines the impact of multiple device parameters and provides many evidences that the position-dependent photocurrent is dominated by photothermoelectric effects. The photoresponse arises from the temperature variations at the metal-nanotube film interfaces, where mismatches of the Seebeck coefficients are measured. Our work also stresses the impact of the substrates, electrode materials and post-thermal treatments on the amplitude and dynamics of the photoresponse. The knowledge gained should guide the future development of photothermoelectric devices and detectors based on SWNTs.