Universidad Braulio Carrillo

Abstract Agencies, boards, and commissions (ABCs) in Canada have a distinct character and set of governance dynamics compared with the conventional public service. ABCs are often conceived to deliver a particular service or regulate or adjudicate matters with some distance from the government of the day, yet (perhaps counter-intuitively) are among the few remaining sites of patronage-like appointments in Canada. This article compiles ABC appointment data ( N = 2,248) from the Province of Alberta over two distinct periods—the Notley government (2015–2019) and the Kenney/Smith governments (2019–2024)—to explore the character and patterns of appointments. We find mixed evidence that appointments to ABCs with more formal autonomy are more likely to be politicized. Some metrics also suggest that the conservative party appointees are slightly more often politically connected, particularly in ABCs that reside in high priority policy areas for the appointing government, and in particular in crown corporations and regulatory agencies.

This study aims to identify factors contributing to linguistic insecurity and provides suggestions to support teachers in fostering linguistic security in their classrooms. The findings are based on data from interviews with 21 high school teachers from across the province of British Columbia (Canada) and a focus group with eight members of the Linguistic Security Committee. A thematic analysis of the data led to the identification of five sets of teacher beliefs associated with challenges about the fostering of linguistic security in their classrooms. For each of these challenges, the Linguistic Security Committee made recommendations, and these may prove helpful to teachers in French-speaking minority contexts across Canada. Three main conclusions are drawn from this study: attention to teacher beliefs should be a focus of educational research, teacher preparation grounded in a sociolinguistic understanding of linguistic variation is necessary, and linguistic security should be a priority.

This article begins with a timeline of the autobioethongraphic method of research, and discusses the tenants of the decolonizing Indigenous methodology (Smith, 1999). Given the criteria of the autobioethnography, i provide context of my Métis heritage and apply the Indigenous Métissage (Donald, 2012) method of research that brought forth the Métis wholistic motivational worldview based on otipemisiwak (selves-governing), wáhkôhtowin ( all-related) and manito (good-vibe) (OWM) Nehiyaw concepts (Jarvis, 2023a). Lastly, i provide applications the K-12 educator may use for entry into a wholistic healing process that connects with the local Indigenous language.

Federated Learning (FL) aggregates locally trained models from individual clients to construct a global model. While FL enables learning a model with data privacy, it often suffers from significant performance degradation when clients have heterogeneous data distributions. This data heterogeneity causes the model to forget the global knowledge acquired from previously sampled clients after being trained on local datasets. Although the introduction of proximal objectives in local updates helps to preserve global knowledge, it can also hinder local learning by interfering with local objectives. To address this problem, we propose a novel method, Federated Stabilized Orthogonal Learning (FedSOL), which adopts an orthogonal learning strategy to balance the two conflicting objectives. Fed-SOL is designed to identify gradients of local objectives that are inherently orthogonal to directions affecting the proximal objective. Specifically, FedSOL targets parameter regions where learning on the local objective is minimally influenced by proximal weight perturbations. Our experiments demonstrate that FedSOL consistently achieves stateof-the-art performance across various scenarios.

Alcohol consumption and high-fat diets often coincide in Western society, exerting negative synergistic effects on the liver. While many studies have demonstrated the impact of ALD and NAFLD on organ protein expression, none have offered a comprehensive view of the dysregulation at the level of the membrane proteome. In this study, we utilize peptidisc and solvent precipitation (SP4) methods to isolate and compare the membrane protein content of the liver with its unique biological functions. Using mice treated with a high-fat diet and ethanol in drinking water, we identified 1,563 liver proteins, with 46% predicted to have a transmembrane segment. Among these, 106 integral membrane proteins are dysregulated compared to the untreated sample. Gene ontology analysis reveals several dysregulated membrane processes associated with lipid metabolism, cell adhesion, xenobiotic processing, and mitochondrial membrane formation. Pathways related to cholesterol and bile acid transport are also mutually affected, suggesting an adaptive mechanism to counter the steatosis of the liver model. Our peptidisc-based membrane proteome profiling thus emerges as an effective way to gain insights into the role of the transmembrane proteome in disease development, warranting further in-depth analysis of the individual effect of the identified dysregulated membrane proteins.

To present a case of initially imaging-negative myelitis following COVID-19 infection, with repeat imaging demonstrating lateral tract longitudinally extensive myelitis responding to immunotherapy.

Abstract Introduction Peyronie’s Disease (PD) is a fibrosing disorder of the penis which may result in penile curvature and deformity of the erect penis. Fractional CO2 laser therapy has been used to remodel severe skin scarring and more recently led to improvements in Dupytren’s contractures. Objective We sought to evaluate the safety of Fractional CO2 Laser Therapy in treating Peyronie’s disease. The assessment includes changes in penile curvature, Peyronie’s Disease Questionnaire (PDQ) Symptom bother score, and International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) scores. Methods This pilot study examined the use of fractional CO2 laser therapy with adjuvant topical triamcinolone (10mg/cc) in patients with PD. Each patient underwent three treatment cycles with 6 weeks interval between each treatment. During the interval time period, patients were required to perform at-home penile modeling three times daily. Penile curvature assessments, self-reported questionnaires and any adverse events were collected at baseline, 24 weeks and 52 weeks. Results A total of 5 patients were included. The mean baseline curvature was 41.80 ± 10.57 degrees and at 24-week follow-up mean curvature was found to be 34.20 ±18.21 degrees, resulting in an 18.1% reduction in curve (p=0.44). Mean IIEF scores were 55.40 ± 14.26 vs. 61.40 ± 6.58, (p=0.234) at baseline and 24-week follow-up, respectively. Similarly, the IIEF erectile function domain scores were 24.40 ± 4.72 vs. 28.60 ±1.52, (p=0.061) at baseline and 24-week, respectively. PDQ symptom bother average scores were 7.6 vs. 5.4 at baseline and 24-week, respectively. Mild adverse effects such as temporary bruising and penile pain were reported. There were no significant adverse events noted. Conclusions Preliminary results, at 24 weeks, suggest that fractionated CO2 laser therapy may serve as a well-tolerated therapy for PD. While this pilot trial was not powered to assess effectiveness, initial results are encouraging. Based upon these findings, a dose escalating phase I clinical trial is warranted to further systematically evaluate the tolerability and utility of Fractional CO2 laser therapy in the treatment of PD. Disclosure Any of the authors act as a consultant, employee or shareholder of an industry for: Coloplast, Boston Scientific. Allergen/Abvie, Galderma, Johnson and Johnson, Leo, MetOptima, Pfizer.

Abstract Objective To analyze the alignment of the arguments of Brazilian and international organizations for the adoption of digital health in Primary Health Care (PHC), from COVID-19. Methods This qualitative document analysis used a rhetorical analysis according to Perelman and Obrecht’s-Tyteca. Two independent researchers searched documents on the websites of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), and the Brazilian Ministry of Health, Federal Council of Medicine, and Federal Council of Nursing between December 2021 and June 2022. The search terms were “digital health”, “telehealth”, “telemedicine”, “e-health”, “telessaúde”, “teleenfermagem”, “telemedicina", and “saúde digital”. Twenty official documents (recommendations, informative pages, guidelines, resolutions, laws, and ordinances) were identified, considering context, authorship, authenticity, reliability, nature, and key concepts. Results The international and Brazilian arguments emphasize the applicability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in health. In logical arguments based on the structure of reality, international bodies emphasize the overlap between health needs and the conditions for the applicability of ICTs, but in Brazil, there was a need to regulate the digital practices of these health professionals. In the structuring of the real, the international discourse contains illustrations of the relationship between the context of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the concrete conditions for the applicability of digital health, while in Brazil the need to strengthen an environment conducive to the digital health policy. Conclusions The Brazilian alignment with international premises is evident, however, there is a need to strengthen the inclusion of digital health in the PHC policy in a socially and economically sustainable way.

Abstract Study Design: Quantitative Study Objectives: The study aimed to explore Family Caregivers of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury (FC-SCI) social media use patterns, most frequently used platforms, importance of social media for receiving and providing support, and type of social support (i.e., social companionship, emotional support, informational support) that FC-SCI receive or provide online. Setting: FC-SCI participants from Canada and USA. Methods: FC-SCI responded to measures regarding the social media platforms they use to access support, the importance of each platform, and the types of online social support they access through social media. Results: Sample consisted of 115 FC-SCI. Most caregivers were a partner or spouse of the individual with SCI (n=110) and female (n=111). Majority of FC-SCI spent 1-3 hours daily on social media (n=74), and Facebook was used predominantly (n=108) to access support. For receiving or providing support, Facebook was ranked most important (60%). The mean differences and stand deviation were found for the types of social support: emotional support (25.93 ± 7.60), social companionship (23.85 ± 7.46), and informational support (27.24 ± 7.50). Conclusions: Using social media for informational support is desired by FC-SCI as it is easily accessible, and time-efficient. The prevalent use of social media for support by FC-SCI demonstrates that social media, particularly Facebook, is a valued platform for support. The support benefits for the mental and physical health of caregivers should be further evaluated.