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Biomedical subjects

E Dufresne

Publications and source records attributed to E Dufresne.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

The influence of victim characteristics on potential jurors' perceptions of brain damage in mild traumatic brain injury.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: To determine the influence of victim/plaintiff sex, occupation and intoxication status at the time of injury on potential jurors' judgement about the presence of brain damage in mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). RESEARCH DESIGN: Survey. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: One of eight scenarios describing a MTBI from a motor vehicle accident was presented to 460 participants at a Department of Motor Vehicles. Victim sex, occupation (accountant or cafeteria worker) and alcohol intoxication status at the time of injury (sober or intoxicated) were manipulated across eight scenarios. Participants rated whether the victim's complaints at 6 months post-injury were the result of brain damage. MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Ratings were influenced by victim occupation and intoxication status (chi2>5.3, p<0.03), but not the sex of the victim. CONCLUSIONS: The occupational and intoxication status of MTBI victims may influence potential jurors' decision about the presence of brain damage.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2005

Integration of the cognitive knowledge of activity in a service oriented architecture in the home care context.

The complex nature of a home care (HC) situation induces an important need for cooperation between the health care professionals. But even if this need is sometimes evocated in reports on HC issues, it is more difficult to get precise knowledge on this cooperative activity, and, consequently, propositions for computerized HC organization and management systems. We did some researches on this topic area. Previous phases of work let us highlight the actual need for cooperation, and obtain precise information on the HC activity processes and data. In this paper, we focused on the integration of this cognitive knowledge on the design of a HC cooperation architecture. Different levels of requirements for the cooperative system are mentioned: coordination, communication of information, delegation of activity, integration of services and personal access to the tasks to perform. A description of the usefulness and use of the cognitive knowledge is proposed, the architecture design, modular, distributed, and able to integrate external services is presented, and the results of a validation test of the implemented prototype, performed with actual HC professionals in an evaluation laboratory are presented.

Cognition↗
PubMed2003

Communication of information in the homecare context.

Organizing the Homecare with new information technologies is nowadays an important challenge. Indeed, some medical evolutions as the improvement of the duration of life, the number of chronic diseases and some social evolutions, such as the quality of patient life, or economic evolutions, such as the reduction of hospitalisation costs, could benefit from homecare. In this paper, we present the problem of the communication of information in the homecare context. Some main phases have been described that compose the two homecare processes: a logistic process and a care process. The communication of information during homecare depends on the concerned phases: first, some exchanges of information from existing Information System to the Homecare Information System; then, some exchanges between the homecare system and the mobile health care actors; and then, some mails during the outcome phase. Coordination architecture is briefly described, and two different implementations for the communication of information during homecare are presented: one is using XML messages to exchange information between Information Systems; the other is using mobile tools for communicating with mobile actors.

Efficiency, Organizational↗
PubMed2003

SIGAPS: a prototype of bibliographic tool for medical research evaluation.

Evaluation of research activity is extremely important but remains a complex domain. There's no standardized methods and evaluation is often based on the scientific publications. It is easy to identify, for a researcher, all the publications realized over a given period of time. At the level of an important establishment like an University Hospital, with about 500 researchers, this sort of inventory is very difficult to realize: we have to list the researchers, to list their publications, to determine the quality of articles produced, to store retrieved data and to calculate summary statistics. We have developed a full-Web prototype, using free software which, for a given researchers' list, interrogates the Pubmed server, downloads the found references and stores them in a local database. They are then enriched with local data which allow the realization of more or less complex analyses, the automatic production of reports, or keyword search. This tool is very easy to use, allowing for immediate analysis of publications of a researcher or a research team. This tool will allow to identify those active teams to be maintained or emergent teams to be supported. It will also allow to compare candidate profiles for appointments to research posts.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed2002

An unscaled parameter to measure the order of surfaces: a new surface elaboration to increase cells adhesion.

We present a new parameter to quantify the order of a surface. This parameter is scale-independent and can be used to compare the organization of a surface at different scales of range and amplitude. To test the accuracy of this roughness parameter versus a hundred existing ones, we created an original statistical bootstrap method. In order to assess the physical relevance of this new parameter, we elaborated a great number of surfaces with various roughness amplitudes on titanium and titanium-based alloys using different physical processes. Then we studied the influence of the roughness amplitude on in vitro adhesion and proliferation of human osteoblasts. It was then shown that our new parameter best discriminates among the cell adhesion phenomena than others' parameters (Average roughness (Ra em leader )): cells adhere better on isotropic surfaces with a low order, provided this order is quantified on a scale that is more important than that of the cells. Additionally, on these low ordered metallic surfaces, the shape of the cells presents the same morphological aspect as that we can see on the human bone trabeculae. The method used to prepare these isotropic surfaces (electroerosion) could be undoubtedly and easily applied to prepare most biomaterials with complex geometries and to improve bone implant integration. Moreover, the new order parameter we developed may be particularly useful for the fundamental understanding of the mechanism of bone cell installation on a relief and of the formation of bone cell-material interface.

Alloys↗
PubMed2002

A resource server for medical training.

OBJECTIVES: We have developed a RESOURCE SERVER to collect and store various elements used by a professor during his lecture. METHODS: The server manages four types of objects: ELEMENTS, RESOURCES (set of elements referring to a given topic), INDEXES (to organize the resources for further search and use), and USERS (to identify providers, users, and access rights). If an ELEMENT s modified, the RESOURCE is automatically updated. RESULTS: An example (preparation of an anatomy lecture) explains how the RESOURCE SERVER works in three steps: organization of the training material, indexing, and retrieval. CONCLUSIONS: The RESOURCE SERVER will help instructors develop, update and share pedagogic resources for supporting their training courses, lessons and conferences. Moreover, these techniques, based on Internet technologies for easy handling of and access to these resources, allow local and distant access. Within the general framework of the French-speaking Virtual Medical University, the RESOURCE SERVER will represent an important link between data collection and its use in intelligent pedagogic training.

Computer Storage Devices↗
PubMed2002

Security in the French-speaking Virtual Medical University.

The Medical Virtual French-Speaking University (UMVF) is a government sponsored program. The participating medical schools will share Web accessible scientific contents and develop their own teaching strategies and learner-trainer interactions. An e-learning platform will manage the access to the UMVF and its various resources. This access will require a unique identification/authentication. Users will then be guided toward those resources adapted to their profile. We recommend the use of a smart card for the identification/authentication. The connection should be secured via a SSL protocol when using critical resources such as assessment of a student, discussion between a student and a teacher and creation or modification of resources by a teacher. In other cases, secure connection will not be required. Usage rights of resources will be explicated. Critical data will be ciphered.

Access to Information↗
PubMed2001

Probing impulsive strain propagation with X-ray pulses.

Pump-probe time-resolved x-ray diffraction of allowed and nearly forbidden reflections in InSb is used to follow the propagation of a coherent acoustic pulse generated by ultrafast laser excitation. The surface and bulk components of the strain could be simultaneously measured due to the large x-ray penetration depth. Comparison of the experimental data with dynamical diffraction simulations suggests that the conventional model for impulsively generated strain underestimates the partitioning of energy into coherent modes.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2000

Qualitative and quantitative study of human osteoblast adhesion on materials with various surface roughnesses.

We quantitatively evaluated the adhesion of human osteoblasts on orthopedic metallic substrates (Ti6Al4V alloy) with various surface roughnesses at several times after inoculation and studied its correlation with qualitative changes in the expression of adhesion proteins and with parameters extensively describing the surface topographies. Cells were orientated in a parallel order on polished surfaces. This orientation was not affected by residual grooves after polishing. On sandblasted surfaces the cells never attained confluence and had a stellate shape, and the cell layer had no particular organization. Extracellular matrix (fibronectin, type I collagen, osteopontin) and cytoskeletal protein (actin, vinculin) orientation reflected the cell layer organization. In our experiment human osteoblasts expressed alpha3beta1 integrin but not alpha2beta1 integrin. In addition to currently analyzed roughness magnitude parameters, we calculated roughness organization parameters (fractal dimension parameters) of the substrates. We observed lower adhesion and proliferation on less organized surfaces (i.e., sandblasted ones). The significant statistical correlation observed between fractal dimension parameters (describing surface roughness organization) and cell parameters adds a new concept to the studies of substratum roughness influence on cell behavior. An attempt at modelization of the cell-surface interaction was made that includes the influence of fractal dimensions parameters.

Alloys↗
PubMed1998

Outcome assessment of implant-supported prostheses.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM: From the dental professional's standpoint, implant rehabilitation offers dramatically improved treatment alternatives to orally disabled patients. However, what a patient perceives as important to their function and satisfaction with their prostheses may be quite different from what the dentist believes are significant health-related improvements. PURPOSE: To resolve this problem, a series of investigations were designed to measure satisfaction and performance in groups of patients who wore various types of prostheses supported by endosseous titanium implants. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Methods are described for assessing treatment efficacy and population needs, including measures of perceived levels of disability, health-related quality of life, and functional capacity. RESULTS: The findings highlight patient factors that have not been considered before and appear to contribute to the success of prosthetic rehabilitation for the edentulous patient. CONCLUSION: Patient-centered approaches to the assessment of treatment efficacy are highly relevant to today's prosthodontists, whose goals are the improvement of function and quality of life for their patients.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Down and out: estimating the relationship between mental health and unemployment.

We utilized a unique dataset of Montreal residents to estimate the relationship between employment and mental health, controlling for endogeneity. We applied a maximum likelihood, simultaneous equation generalized probit model to estimate jointly the determinants of an individual's latent index of employability and their mental health as measured by the Psychiatric Symptom Index (PSI). The likelihood function was adjusted to account for the fact that individuals were sampled based on their employment status, and also for the fact that repeated observations of individuals in different periods were used in the analysis. We found tangible beneficial effects of mental health on employability. In addition, employment appears to improve mental health. The ML estimates of the endogenous relationship between employment and mental health indicate that OLS estimates are biased upwards, but the effects of unemployment on deteriorating mental health are not spurious.

Adult↗