Comparing the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index with the Google Street View Measure of Vegetation to Assess Associations between Greenness, Walkability, Recreational Physical Activity, and Health in Ottawa, Canada.

The manner in which features of the built environment, such as walkability and greenness, impact participation in recreational activities and health are complex. We analyzed survey data provided by 282 Ottawa adults in 2016. The survey collected information on participation in recreational physical activities by season, and whether these activities were performed within participants' neighbourhoods. The SF-12 instrument was used to characterize their overall mental and physical health. Measures of active living environment, and the satellite derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Google Street View (GSV) greenness indices were assigned to participants' residential addresses. Logistic regression and least squares regression were used to characterize associations between these measures and recreational physical activity, and self-reported health. The NDVI was not associated with participation in recreational activities in either the winter or summer, or physical or mental health. In contrast, the GSV was positively associated with participation in recreational activities during the summer. Specifically, those in the highest quartile spent, on average, 5.4 more hours weekly on recreational physical activities relative to those in the lowest quartile (p = 0.01). Active living environments were associated with increased utilitarian walking, and reduced reliance on use of motor vehicles. Our findings provide support for the hypothesis that neighbourhood greenness may play an important role in promoting participation in recreational physical activity during the summer.

The influence of registered nurses and nurse practitioners on patient experience with primary care: results from the Canadian QUALICO-PC study.

Nurses, whether registered nurses (RNs) or nurse practitioners (NPs), are becoming key providers of primary care services. While evidence for the influence of NPs on patient experience in primary care is mounting, this is less so for RNs. We use the Canadian component of the international Quality and Costs of Primary Care 2013/14 survey to investigate the mechanisms by which nurses can affect patients' experience in primary care, focusing on accessibility and appropriateness of care. The data allow us to distinguish between family practice RNs, specialised RNs and NPs, and covers all types of patients visiting a primary care clinic in a variety of contexts in all Canadian provinces. In addition to the types of nurses and full-time equivalent (FTE) numbers, we explore the role of nurse autonomy and collaboration. Our regression results show that one of the most important predictors of patient experience is the collaboration between health professionals, whereas nurse staffing in terms of FTE numbers has little influence by itself. Different types of nurses influence different dimensions of accessibility, and the association between patient experience and nurse staffing depends on the number of physicians in the clinic. Our results can inform decision-makers on how to strengthen primary care provision, and particularly in Canadian context, the adaptation of the recently implemented interprofessional primary care teams.

Use of Aleuria alantia Lectin Affinity Chromatography to Enrich Candidate Biomarkers from the Urine of Patients with Bladder Cancer.

Developing a urine test to detect bladder tumours with high sensitivity and specificity is a key goal in bladder cancer research. We hypothesised that bladder cancer-specific glycoproteins might fulfill this role. Lectin-ELISAs were used to study the binding of 25 lectins to 10 bladder cell lines and serum and urine from bladder cancer patients and non-cancer controls. Selected lectins were then used to enrich glycoproteins from the urine of bladder cancer patients and control subjects for analysis by shotgun proteomics. None of the lectins showed a strong preference for bladder cancer cell lines over normal urothlelial cell lines or for urinary glycans from bladder cancer patients over those from non-cancer controls. However, several lectins showed a strong preference for bladder cell line glycans over serum glycans and are potentially useful for enriching glycoproteins originating from the urothelium in urine. Aleuria alantia lectin affinity chromatography and shotgun proteomics identified mucin-1 and golgi apparatus protein 1 as proteins warranting further investigation as urinary biomarkers for low-grade bladder cancer. Glycosylation changes in bladder cancer are not reliably detected by measuring lectin binding to unfractionated proteomes, but it is possible that more specific reagents and/or a focus on individual proteins may produce clinically useful biomarkers.