FUNDING FAMILIES: AMENDING THE CANADA STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM TO BETTER SUPPORT LONE MOTHER STUDENTS

This study examines lone mother students’ experiences with the Canada Student Financial Assistance Program (CSFA Program) to determine which policies and processes the Government of Canada should amend to better support this student population. The questions guiding this research were: does the CSFA Program help or hinder lone mother students earn university degree(s)? Which aspects of the CSFA Program need amending to better support lone mother students throughout their pursuit of higher education? Using a literature review, survey data, and semi-structured interviews, I found that lone mother students’ greatest challenge is securing sufficient funding; and that, although the CSFA Program provides financial assistance, some of the CSFA Program’s policies and processes create hardship for lone mother students. This study concludes by providing the participants’ recommendations on how the Government of Canada should amend the CSFA Program’s policies and processes to better support lone mother students

Morphology and pattern of Quaternary sedimentation in the North Sea Basin

The Quaternary North Sea Basin, which extends from northwest mainland Europe in the south (52°N) to the Norwegian Sea in the north (62°N), contains a thick (up to 1 km) sedimentary succession that records the changing nature of sediment supply from surrounding land areas during the last c.2.6 Ma. We use an extensive 2D and 3D seismic database to correlate major Quaternary seismo-stratigraphic surfaces and units across the North Sea and reconstruct the broad-scale infill pattern of the entire Quaternary North Sea Basin. The total volume of Quaternary sediments in the North Sea (350,000 km²) is c.140,000 km3, while the area inside the 500 m contour of the base-Quaternary surface has a volume of 109,000 km3. Two largely independent depocentres developed in the North Sea Basin during the early Quaternary: the southern and central sub-basin was infilled by shelf fluvio-deltaic and prodeltaic sediments delivered from the east and south-east, whilst the northern sub-basin was infilled mainly by prograding glacigenic debris-flows deposited from an ice mass centred on the Norwegian mainland. Contour currents were an important mechanism of sediment deposition and reworking, with water circulation in the basin probably occurring in an anti-clockwise direction. Whilst most of the southern North Sea Basin was infilled by around 1.6-1.7 Ma, a depression persisted in the central North Sea until around 1 Ma. The analysis of landforms on 3D seismic data suggests that the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet (FIS) extended intermittently to the palaeo-shelf break in the northern North Sea during the earliest Quaternary and expanded into the central North Sea prior to the excavation of the Norwegian Channel

Sr and Nd isotope data for arc-related (meta) volcanics (SW Iberia)

In the southern sector of the Ossa-Morena Zone (Iberian Variscan Chain), along its boundaries with the Beja-Acebuches Ophiolite and the South-Portuguese Zone, Upper Palaeozoic igneous mafic and intermediate rocks, both intrusive and extrusive, are widely represented. The so-called Odivelas Unit (Andrade,1983), include (meta-) basalts and (meta-) andesites, which, according with previous studies, display low-K tholeiitic to calc-alkaline signatures and, therefore, are interpreted as remnants of an active margin volcanic arc. Santos et al. (1990) subdivided those volcanics into two groups: in Alfundão-Peroguarda, the tholeiitic nature is dominant; in Odivelas-Penique, the calc-alkaline signature becomes more pronounced. Intercalation of limestone layers provided some age constraints, showing that the subduction-related volcanic activity in the studied area began in the Lower Devonian and continued, at least, through the Middle Devonian (Conde & Andrade, 1974; Machado et al., 2010). In this work, samples previously studied by Santos et al. (1990) and Silva et al. (2011) were analysed for Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr isotopes. Considering that the volcanics were systematically affected by hydrothermal metamorphism, it is expected that the Sr signatures show significant disturbance. In contrast, Nd isotope ratios probably reflect the primary features. Alfundão-Peroguarda samples show a very limited range of positive initial εNd, from +5.1 to +4.3 (assuming 400 Ma), showing no evidence for significant crustal assimilation and, therefore, allowing the attribution of negative Nb and Ta anomalies to arc-related processes On the other hand, 87Sr/86Sr varies from 0.7044 to 0.7060 (for 400Ma). These samples rocks define a horizontal trend on the initial εNd vs. initial 87Sr/86Sr plot, typical of co-genetic rocks that underwent interaction with seawater. On the other hand, Odivelas-Penique volcanics show wide spectra for both initial 87Sr/86Sr (from 0.7038 to 0.7066) and εNd (from +4.6 to -4.1). Significantly, the highest εNd values for this group are within the narrow range defined by Alfundão-Peroguarda tholeiitic basalts, suggesting a common mantle source (or very similar sources) for the most mafic magmas of both sectors. The whole set of Nd isotope ratios supports the distinction previously proposed between the two groups of volcanics. In addition, the variation from positive to negative initial εNd values in the Odivelas-Penique suite shows that its geochemical features were likely influenced by assimilation of continental crustal material

Abnormal LDIflare but Normal Quantitative Sensory Testing and Dermal Nerve Fiber Density in Patients with Painful Diabetic Neuropathy

OBJECTIVE—Abnormal small nerve fiber function may be an early feature of diabetic neuropathy and may also underlie painful symptoms. Methods for assessing small-fiber damage include quantitative sensory testing (QST) and determining intraepidermal nerve fiber density. We recently described a reproducible physiological technique, the LDIflare, which assesses small-fiber function and thus may reflect early dysfunction before structural damage. The value of this technique in painful neuropathy was assessed by comparing it with QST and dermal nerve fiber density (NFD)

Corneal Confocal Microscopy: A novel noninvasive test to diagnose and stratify the severity of human diabetic neuropathy

OBJECTIVE: The accurate quantification of human diabetic neuropathy is important to define at-risk patients, anticipate deterioration, and assess new therapies. ---------- RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A total of 101 diabetic patients and 17 age-matched control subjects underwent neurological evaluation, neurophysiology tests, quantitative sensory testing, and evaluation of corneal sensation and corneal nerve morphology using corneal confocal microscopy (CCM). ---------- RESULTS: Corneal sensation decreased significantly (P = 0.0001) with increasing neuropathic severity and correlated with the neuropathy disability score (NDS) (r = 0.441, P 3) defined an NFD of 6) defined a NFD cutoff of <20.8/mm2 with a sensitivity of 0.71 (0.42–0.92) and specificity of 0.64 (0.54–0.74). ---------- CONCLUSIONS: CCM is a noninvasive clinical technique that may be used to detect early nerve damage and stratify diabetic patients with increasing neuropathic severity. Established diabetic neuropathy leads to pain and foot ulceration. Detecting neuropathy early may allow intervention with treatments to slow or reverse this condition (1). Recent studies suggested that small unmyelinated C-fibers are damaged early in diabetic neuropathy (2–4) but can only be detected using invasive procedures such as sural nerve biopsy (4,5) or skin-punch biopsy (6–8). Our studies have shown that corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) can identify early small nerve fiber damage and accurately quantify the severity of diabetic neuropathy (9–11). We have also shown that CCM relates to intraepidermal nerve fiber loss (12) and a reduction in corneal sensitivity (13) and detects early nerve fiber regeneration after pancreas transplantation (14). Recently we have also shown that CCM detects nerve fiber damage in patients with Fabry disease (15) and idiopathic small fiber neuropathy (16) when results of electrophysiology tests and quantitative sensory testing (QST) are normal. In this study we assessed corneal sensitivity and corneal nerve morphology using CCM in diabetic patients stratified for the severity of diabetic neuropathy using neurological evaluation, electrophysiology tests, and QST. This enabled us to compare CCM and corneal esthesiometry with established tests of diabetic neuropathy and define their sensitivity and specificity to detect diabetic patients with early neuropathy and those at risk of foot ulceration

Potential Antiviral Options against SARS-CoV-2 Infection

As of June 2020, the number of people infected with severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to skyrocket, with more than 6.7 million cases worldwide. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN) has highlighted the need for better control of SARS-CoV-2 infections. However, developing novel virus-specific vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs against SARS-CoV-2 can be time-consuming and costly. Convalescent sera and safe-in-man broad-spectrum antivirals (BSAAs) are readily available treatment options. Here, we developed a neutralization assay using SARS-CoV-2 strain and Vero-E6 cells. We identified the most potent sera from recovered patients for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. We also screened 136 safe-in-man broad-spectrum antivirals against the SARS-CoV-2 infection in Vero-E6 cells and identified nelfinavir, salinomycin, amodiaquine, obatoclax, emetine and homoharringtonine. We found that a combination of orally available virus-directed nelfinavir and host-directed amodiaquine exhibited the highest synergy. Finally, we developed a website to disseminate the knowledge on available and emerging treatments of COVID-19