Les élections provinciales dans le Québec

This essay on electoral geography, the first, perhaps, to be published in Canada, is divided into four distinct parts. The first one deals with the themes of the twenty five provincial electoral campaigns. It includes maps showing the results of the votation in every county of the Province, as divided between the two main political parties, the Liberal and the Conservative. The second part, almost exclusively graphic, examines the political attitude of every provincial county. To circumvent the various problems, graphic curves have been established, indicating the percentage of the liberal and conservative voters and of the nonvoters. In a third part, some aspects of a very particular electoral phenomenon, abstention, are studied. After all possible causes of error had been discarded, a nonvoter curve was obtained, which is used, in particular, to study the fluctuations of the parties. Finally, the influence of the rural vote, a basic element in a long life ministerial party, the geographical distribution of the parties and its evolution within the regions according to certain causes v.g. economic crises, and the Québec electoral System, in relation to the vote and to the parties, are analyzed in a last part about the conditions of political life in the Province of Québec

Effect of feeding lactic acid bacteria and fermented milk on specific and non-specific immune response of mice infected with Klebsiella pneumoniae AD-1

The diets of six groups of weaned mice were supplemented with ultra high temperature (UHT) milk containing a washed suspension of lactic acid bacteria (mixture of 8 strains) or with UHT milk fermented by the same strains and heat-treated or not. Control groups received physiological saline or UHT milk only. The mice were infected intranasally by Klebsiella pneumoniae AD-1 on the 13th d of feeding. The effect on the immune system (specific and nonspecific) before and after infection was evaluated by measuring the phagocytosis of alveolar macrophages (using zymosan particles) and by measuring of total immunoglobulin G and A levels in serum and in pulmonary fluid (using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method). Postinfection survival was 0.7 d longer for mice receiving fermented milk than for the saline control group. The percent phagocytosis did not vary significantly, while serum immunoglobulin G levels differed between mice fed fermented milk and those fed bacterial suspensions in unfermented milk. Fermentation appears to be essential for the beneficial effects on the immune system and survival time; this effect no longer occurs after pasteurization of fermented milk

Absence of mitral valve prolapse in juvenile hyperthyroidism

International audienc

A Cost Comparison of Oral Tegafur Plus Uracil/Folinic Acid and Parenteral Fluorouracil for Colorectal Cancer in Canada

Background: Two randomised, controlled trials (n = 1396) comparing (i) intravenous fluorouracil (FU) plus oral folinic acid (leucovorin) and (ii) oral tegafur plus uracil (UFT) plus folinic acid for the treatment of metastatic colorectal carcinoma found both regimens to have equivalent efficacy in terms of survival, tumour response and time to disease progression. The UFT/folinic acid regimen was associated with a better toxicity profile than FU/folinic acid. Objective: To determine the comparative frequencies and costs of healthcare resources utilised in the treatment of patients with these two regimens from a hospital and government perspective. Design: A cost-minimisation analysis of a subgroup of patients from the trials (n = 154) was conducted. Costs considered included those for hospital admissions, outpatient clinics, laboratories, imaging modalities, other diagnostic procedures, physician resources, other health professionals, other procedures such as surgery and transfusion, and concomitant medications. The cost of study medications was not included in the analysis. The endpoint was a total average cost per patient per treatment and per cycle. Results: Patients on the oral UFT regimen had fewer outpatient clinic visits and used fewer laboratory resources than patients treated with FU. However, those on the oral regimen had more days of hospitalisation than the patients treated with the intravenous regimen. Patients treated with UFT used 21% less concomitant medication; however, in both groups these medications accounted for a similar percentage compared with the total costs of the treatment. Physicians Conclusions: In regard to the two therapeutic approaches, the cost of treatment per patient and per cycle using oral UFT/folinic acid was less than that using intravenous FU/folinic acid.Antineoplastics, Colorectal-cancer, Cost-minimisation, Fluorouracil, Folinic-acid, Pharmacoeconomics, Tegafur/uracil, Resource-use