Critères pour apprécier les difficultés d’accès à l’indemnisation des travailleurs immigrants victimes de lésions professionnelles

Règle générale, presque tous les travailleurs du Québec victimes de lésions professionnelles peuvent se prévaloir d’indemnités. Mais l’accès à l’indemnisation est difficile pour bon nombre d’entre eux dont les travailleurs immigrants. Cet article décrit le processus d’évaluation et les critères ayant permis de juger des difficultés rencontrées par des travailleurs lors de leur parcours d’indemnisation. Trois groupes d’experts ont attribué des scores de difficulté à un échantillon de 104 travailleurs immigrants et non-immigrants de la région montréalaise victimes de lésions musculo-squelettiques. La comparaison des scores a été faite sous trois angles d’évaluation (médical, juridique et administratif) et le résultat demeure le même : les travailleurs immigrants ont des scores de difficultés supérieurs aux autres travailleurs et particulièrement lorsque l’analyse est faite sous les angles juridique et administratif. Les critères retenus ciblent les dimensions humaines liées aux incompréhensions lors des procédures, des problèmes de communication à lire la documentation ainsi qu’à compléter les formulaires et à s’exprimer précisément lorsqu’il s’agit de décrire les événements accidentels ou les circonstances entourant l’apparition de la lésion et les symptômes médicaux.As a general rule, almost all of Quebec’s workers who suffer work injuries will be taken care of by the worker compensation system. However, access to worker compensation is difficult for many workers, including immigrant workers. This article describes the evaluation process and the criteria used for assessing the difficulties encountered by workers during the compensation process. Three groups of experts assigned difficulty scores to a sample group from the Montreal region consisting of 104 immigrant and non-immigrant musculoskeletal injury victims. The difficulty scores were compared using three aspects for evaluation (medical, legal and administrative), which produced the same result: the immigrant workers had higher difficulty scores than the other workers and particularly from the legal and administrative standpoints. The criteria used targeted the human dimensions associated with the lack of understanding during the process and with communication problems in reading documents, completing forms and verbally describing precisely the accident events, the injury circumstances and the medical symptoms.En regla general, casi todos los trabajadores de Quebec que son víctimas de lesiones profesionales pueden acceder a indemnizaciones. Pero este acceso es difícil para un buen número de trabajadores, entre ellos, los trabajadores inmigrantes. Este artículo describe el proceso de evaluación y los criterios que permiten juzgar las dificultades encontradas por dichos trabajadores en el curso del proceso de indemnización. Tres grupos de expertos atribuyeron un puntaje según una escala de dificultad a una muestra de 104 trabajadores inmmigrantes y no-inmigrantes de la región de Montreal víctimas de lesiones musculoesqueléticas. Para comparar los puntajes se utilizaron tres ángulos de evaluación (médico, jurídico y administrativo). Los tres análisis concuerdan en el mismo resultado : los trabajadores inmigrantes tienen un puntaje de dificultad superior a los otros trabajadores, particularmente cuando el análisis se hace bajo los ángulos jurídico y administrativo. Los criterios retenidos se refieren a las dimensiones humanas relacionadas con la falta de comprensión durante los trámites, los problemas de comunicación al leer la documentación y al completar los formularios, y a expresarse de manera precisa cuando se trata de describir lo sucedido en el accidente, las circunstancias en torno a la aparición de la lesión y los síntomas médicos

Histone deacetylase inhibitors strongly sensitise neuroblastoma cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis by a caspases-dependent increase of the pro- to anti-apoptotic proteins ratio

BACKGROUND: Neuroblastoma (NB) is the second most common solid childhood tumour, an aggressive disease for which new therapeutic strategies are strongly needed. Tumour necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) selectively induces apoptosis in most tumour cells, but not in normal tissues and therefore represents a valuable candidate in apoptosis-inducing therapies. Caspase-8 is silenced in a subset of highly malignant NB cells, which results in full TRAIL resistance. In addition, despite constitutive caspase-8 expression, or its possible restoration by different strategies, NB cells remain weakly sensitive to TRAIL indicating a need to develop strategies to sensitise NB cells to TRAIL. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) are a new class of anti-cancer agent inducing apoptosis or cell cycle arrest in tumour cells with very low toxicity toward normal cells. Although HDACIs were recently shown to increase death induced by TRAIL in weakly TRAIL-sensitive tumour cells, the precise involved sensitisation mechanisms have not been fully identified. METHODS: NB cell lines were treated with various doses of HDACIs and TRAIL, then cytotoxicity was analysed by MTS/PMS proliferation assays, apoptosis was measured by the Propidium staining method, caspases activity by colorimetric protease assays, and (in)activation of apoptotic proteins by immunoblotting. RESULTS: Sub-toxic doses of HDACIs strongly sensitised caspase-8 positive NB cell lines to TRAIL induced apoptosis in a caspases dependent manner. Combined treatments increased the activation of caspases and Bid, and the inactivation of the anti-apoptotic proteins XIAP, Bcl-x, RIP, and survivin, thereby increasing the pro- to anti-apoptotic protein ratio. It also enhanced the activation of the mitochondrial pathway. Interestingly, the kinetics of caspases activation and inactivation of anti-apoptotic proteins is accelerated by combined treatment with TRAIL and HDACIs compared to TRAIL alone. In contrast, cell surface expression of TRAIL-receptors or TRAIL is not affected by sub-toxic doses of HDACIs. CONCLUSION: HDACIs were shown to activate the mitochondrial pathway and to sensitise NB cells to TRAIL by enhancing the amplitude of the apoptotic cascade and by restoring an apoptosis-prone ratio of pro- to anti-apoptotic proteins. Combining HDACIs and TRAIL could therefore represent a weakly toxic and promising strategy to target TRAIL-resistant tumours such as neuroblastomas

The Chemokine Receptor CXCR4 Strongly Promotes Neuroblastoma Primary Tumour and Metastatic Growth, but not Invasion

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a heterogeneous, and particularly malignant childhood neoplasm in its higher stages, with a propensity to form metastasis in selected organs, in particular liver and bone marrow, and for which there is still no efficient treatment available beyond surgery. Recent evidence indicates that the CXCR4/CXCL12 chemokine/receptor axis may be involved in promoting NB invasion and metastasis. In this study, we explored the potential role of CXCR4 in the malignant behaviour of NB, using a combination of in vitro functional analyses and in vivo growth and metastasis assessment in an orthotopic NB mouse model. We show here that CXCR4 overexpression in non-metastatic CXCR4-negative NB cells IGR-NB8 and in moderately metastatic, CXCR4 expressing NB cells IGR-N91, strongly increased tumour growth of primary tumours and liver metastases, without altering the frequency or the pattern of metastasis. Moreover shRNA-mediated knock-down experiments confirmed our observations by showing that silencing CXCR4 in NB cells impairs in vitro and almost abrogates in vivo growth. High levels of CXCL12 were detected in the mouse adrenal gland (the primary tumour site), and in the liver suggesting a paracrine effect of host-derived CXCL12 on NB growth. In conclusion, this study reveals a yet unreported NB-specific predominant growth and survival-promoting role of CXCR4, which warrants a critical reconsideration of the role of CXCR4 in the malignant behaviour of NB and other cancers

Global transpiration data from sap flow measurements : the SAPFLUXNET database

Plant transpiration links physiological responses of vegetation to water supply and demand with hydrological, energy, and carbon budgets at the land-atmosphere interface. However, despite being the main land evaporative flux at the global scale, transpiration and its response to environmental drivers are currently not well constrained by observations. Here we introduce the first global compilation of whole-plant transpiration data from sap flow measurements (SAPFLUXNET, https://sapfluxnet.creaf.cat/, last access: 8 June 2021). We harmonized and quality-controlled individual datasets supplied by contributors worldwide in a semi-automatic data workflow implemented in the R programming language. Datasets include sub-daily time series of sap flow and hydrometeorological drivers for one or more growing seasons, as well as metadata on the stand characteristics, plant attributes, and technical details of the measurements. SAPFLUXNET contains 202 globally distributed datasets with sap flow time series for 2714 plants, mostly trees, of 174 species. SAPFLUXNET has a broad bioclimatic coverage, with woodland/shrubland and temperate forest biomes especially well represented (80 % of the datasets). The measurements cover a wide variety of stand structural characteristics and plant sizes. The datasets encompass the period between 1995 and 2018, with 50 % of the datasets being at least 3 years long. Accompanying radiation and vapour pressure deficit data are available for most of the datasets, while on-site soil water content is available for 56 % of the datasets. Many datasets contain data for species that make up 90 % or more of the total stand basal area, allowing the estimation of stand transpiration in diverse ecological settings. SAPFLUXNET adds to existing plant trait datasets, ecosystem flux networks, and remote sensing products to help increase our understanding of plant water use, plant responses to drought, and ecohydrological processes. SAPFLUXNET version 0.1.5 is freely available from the Zenodo repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3971689; Poyatos et al., 2020a). The "sapfluxnetr" R package - designed to access, visualize, and process SAPFLUXNET data - is available from CRAN.Peer reviewe

The FLUXNET2015 dataset and the ONEFlux processing pipeline for eddy covariance data

The FLUXNET2015 dataset provides ecosystem-scale data on CO2, water, and energy exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere, and other meteorological and biological measurements, from 212 sites around the globe (over 1500 site-years, up to and including year 2014). These sites, independently managed and operated, voluntarily contributed their data to create global datasets. Data were quality controlled and processed using uniform methods, to improve consistency and intercomparability across sites. The dataset is already being used in a number of applications, including ecophysiology studies, remote sensing studies, and development of ecosystem and Earth system models. FLUXNET2015 includes derived-data products, such as gap-filled time series, ecosystem respiration and photosynthetic uptake estimates, estimation of uncertainties, and metadata about the measurements, presented for the first time in this paper. In addition, 206 of these sites are for the first time distributed under a Creative Commons (CC-BY 4.0) license. This paper details this enhanced dataset and the processing methods, now made available as open-source codes, making the dataset more accessible, transparent, and reproducible.Peer reviewe

Le programme québécois « Naître égaux – Grandir en santé » Étude des effets sur la santé des mères et des nouveau-nés

Naître égaux - Grandir en santé (Equal at Birth •Growing in Health) is a program for pregnant women who have less than 11 years of schooling and whose family income is below the poverty line. From January 1994 to November 1998, 1,340 pregnant and disadvantaged women were assigned randomly to either an experimental or a control group. From the 20th week of pregnancy onwards, the experimental group received food supplements (eggs, milk, orange juice) and individualized follow up while the control group received food supplements only. On the whole, the results did not show a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in terms of low birth weight, intra-uterine growth restriction and premature birth. However, the program had a positive and significant effect on new mothers’ average level of postnatal depression symptoms. It was also noted that there were fewer cases of postnatal anemia among women who benefited from the program and breastfeeding after childbirth was highly common among Canadian-born mothers. Finally, as regards social support, women in the experimental group received more material aid and had more opportunities to confide in somebody. The results of this program are of direct concern to the health and social services network which should make inequality reduction a real public health challenge. It is absolutely necessary to take action before disadvantaged women become pregnant.Le programme Naître égaux - Grandir en santé est un programme qui s’adresse à des femmes enceintes ayant moins de onze années de scolarité et dont le revenu familial est en deçà du seuil de pauvreté. De janvier 1994 à novembre 1998, 1 340 femmes enceintes défavorisées ont été réparties au hasard entre, d’une part, un groupe expérimental recevant, à partir de la 20e semaine de grossesse, des suppléments alimentaires (oeufs, lait, jus d’orange) et un suivi personnalisé et, d’autre part, un groupe contrôle recevant des suppléments alimentaires seulement. Dans l’ensemble, les résultats ne permettent pas de constater de différence significative entre le groupe expérimental et le groupe contrôle tant en ce qui a trait à l’insuffisance de poids à la naissance, au retard de croissance intrautérine ou à la prématurité. Par contre, le programme a eu un effet positif et significatif sur le niveau moyen des symptômes dépressifs postnatals des nouvelles mères. On a aussi noté une forte tendance à faire moins d’anémie postnatale chez les femmes qui ont bénéficié du programme ainsi qu’une fréquence plus élevée d’allaitement maternel après l’accouchement parmi les mères d’origine canadienne. Finalement, sur le plan du soutien social, les femmes du groupe expérimental ont reçu plus d’aide matérielle et elles ont eu plus de possibilités de se confier. Les résultats de ce programme interpellent directement le réseau de la santé et des services sociaux pour qu’il fasse de la réduction des inégalités un véritable enjeu de santé publique. Il faut, hors de tout doute, agir d’abord en amont, avant que les femmes défavorisées ne deviennent enceintes.Brodeur Jean-Marc. Le programme québécois « Naître égaux – Grandir en santé » Étude des effets sur la santé des mères et des nouveau-nés. In: Santé, Société et Solidarité, n°1, 2004. Naître en France et au Québec. pp. 119-127

L'UQAM, une mission particulière de mobilisation des connaissances

International audienceFrom the perspective of learning, transmitting and being innovating, universities encounter crucial challenges. Since the end of 1970, the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) has adopted a social mission to provide to Montréal’s community and Quebec’s society its expertise in training, research and creation. In this paper, first, we present the historical context which places the development of the social mission of modern universities. This leads us, in a second stage, to introduce the institutional anchoring of the action research work done in our university. This work is reflected in the presentation of the institutional policy 41 that lead to the creation of the Services aux collectivités. We pursue the presentation with an analytical look at the ways Canadians universities mobilize knowledge and at the specifics of the model established at UQAM.Dans une perspective d'apprendre, de transmettre et d'innover, les universités ont des défis cruciaux à relever. Depuis la fin des années 1970, l'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) a adopté une mission sociale qui consiste à mettre au service de la communauté montréalaise et de la société québécoise son expertise en matière de formation, de recherche et de création. Dans un premier temps, nous présentons le cadre historique qui situe le développement de la mission sociale des universités modernes. Ceci nous conduit, dans un deuxième temps, à présenter l'ancrage institutionnel de la recherche action du sein de notre université. Ce travail se traduit par la présentation de la politique 41 et du Service aux collectivités de l'UQAM. Nous enchainons par un regard analytique sur la mobilisation des connaissances en milieu universitaire et sur les spécificités du modèle mis en place à l'UQAM