Drive-Thru Hot Beverages: Still a Risk?

Stella Liebeck brought to light the risk for operators who serve hot beverages through their drive-thru windows when she successfully sued McDonald’s in 1994 for the burns she received when coffee spilled in her lap. The current study replicated 1998 research on a national level, where 1,585 coffee temperatures collected from drive-thru windows were analyzed to determine if operators had lowered their coffee temperatures as a result of this widely-publicized case.

Customer Perception of Drive-Thru Service

The rapid growth of off-premise dining and, consequently, drive- thru service, presents the challenge of building customer loyalty in a highly competitive marketplace. In this study, customer perceptions of drive-thru service associated with quick service restaurants were examined. Results suggest that service time appears to differ among quick service restaurants, even those within the same chain. Employee courtesy was rated positively at all restaurants, as was food quality. The implications of these results for restaurateurs who offer drive-thru service are discussed.

Student Independent Projects 2009: Embedding Sustainability: Hiking Trail Proposal to Steady Brook via Massey Drive

The construction and maintenance of a hiking trail to Steady Brook via Massey Drive would provide an opportunity for introducing proactive strategies toward sustainability. This will form a motive for further ecotourism development as Massey Drive becomes recognized as a tourist destination. For Massey Drive to embrace hiking trail development with the intention of developing further tourism initiatives, educating the community members about sustainability in tourism is essential to provide the community with the knowledge necessary to develop tourism through a long-term vision.

The human preprotachykinin-A gene promoter has been highly conserved and can drive human-like marker gene expression in the adult mouse CNS.

Peer reviewed

Coevolutionary Feedbacks between Female Mating Interval and Male Allocation to Competing Sperm Traits Can Drive Evolution of Costly Polyandry

Acknowledgments We thank A. B. Duthie, S. Losdat, and M. E. Wolak for useful discussions and comments and the European Research Council for funding. We also thank the two reviewers, whose suggestions greatly improved the manuscript.

The human preprotachykinin-A gene promoter has been highly conserved and can drive human-like marker gene expression in the adult mouse CNS.

Peer reviewed

Coevolutionary Feedbacks between Female Mating Interval and Male Allocation to Competing Sperm Traits Can Drive Evolution of Costly Polyandry

Acknowledgments We thank A. B. Duthie, S. Losdat, and M. E. Wolak for useful discussions and comments and the European Research Council for funding. We also thank the two reviewers, whose suggestions greatly improved the manuscript.

Comparaison entre la dérive de VO₂ et de FC chez des sujets de deux niveaux d'endurance

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Lysosomal Disorders Drive Susceptibility to Tuberculosis by Compromising Macrophage Migration.

A zebrafish genetic screen for determinants of susceptibility to Mycobacterium marinum identified a hypersusceptible mutant deficient in lysosomal cysteine cathepsins that manifests hallmarks of human lysosomal storage diseases. Under homeostatic conditions, mutant macrophages accumulate undigested lysosomal material, which disrupts endocytic recycling and impairs their migration to, and thus engulfment of, dying cells. This causes a buildup of unengulfed cell debris. During mycobacterial infection, macrophages with lysosomal storage cannot migrate toward infected macrophages undergoing apoptosis in the tuberculous granuloma. The unengulfed apoptotic macrophages undergo secondary necrosis, causing granuloma breakdown and increased mycobacterial growth. Macrophage lysosomal storage similarly impairs migration to newly infecting mycobacteria. This phenotype is recapitulated in human smokers, who are at increased risk for tuberculosis. A majority of their alveolar macrophages exhibit lysosomal accumulations of tobacco smoke particulates and do not migrate to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The incapacitation of highly microbicidal first-responding macrophages may contribute to smokers' susceptibility to tuberculosis.

Leptin directly promotes T-cell glycolytic metabolism to drive effector T-cell differentiation in a mouse model of autoimmunity.

Upon activation, T cells require energy for growth, proliferation, and function. Effector T (Teff) cells, such as Th1 and Th17 cells, utilize high levels of glycolytic metabolism to fuel proliferation and function. In contrast, Treg cells require oxidative metabolism to fuel suppressive function. It remains unknown how Teff/Treg-cell metabolism is altered when nutrients are limited and leptin levels are low. We therefore examined the role of malnutrition and associated hypoleptinemia on Teff versus Treg cells. We found that both malnutrition-associated hypoleptinemia and T cell-specific leptin receptor knockout suppressed Teff-cell number, function, and glucose metabolism, but did not alter Treg-cell metabolism or suppressive function. Using the autoimmune mouse model EAE, we confirmed that fasting-induced hypoleptinemia altered Teff-cell, but not Treg-cell, glucose metabolism, and function in vivo, leading to decreased disease severity. To explore potential mechanisms, we examined HIF-1α, a key regulator of Th17 differentiation and Teff-cell glucose metabolism, and found HIF-1α expression was decreased in T cell-specific leptin receptor knockout Th17 cells, and in Teff cells from fasted EAE mice, but was unchanged in Treg cells. Altogether, these data demonstrate a selective, cell-intrinsic requirement for leptin to upregulate glucose metabolism and maintain function in Teff, but not Treg cells.

Comparaison entre la dérive de VO₂ et de FC chez des sujets de deux niveaux d'endurance

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Psychometric properties of the Drive for Muscularity Scale in Malay men

The Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS) is a widely used measure in studies of men’s body image, but few studies have examined its psychometric properties outside English-speaking samples. Here, we assessed the factor structure of a Malay translation of the DMS. A community sample of 159 Malay men from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, completed the DMS, along with measures of self-esteem, body appreciation, and muscle discrepancy. Exploratory factor analysis led to the extraction of two factors, differentiating attitudes from behaviours, which mirrors the parent scale. Both factors also loaded on to a higher-order drive for muscularity factor. The subscales of the Malay DMS had adequate internal consistencies and good convergent validity, insofar as significant relationships were reported with self-esteem, body appreciation,muscle discrepancy, and body mass index. These results indicate that the Malay DMS has acceptable psychometric properties and can be used to assess body image concerns in Malay men.

Implementation of a drive-by monitoring system for transport infrastructure utilising GNSS

Ageing and deterioration of infrastructure is a challenge facing transport authorities. In particular, there is a need for increased bridge monitoring in order to provide adequate maintenance, prioritise allocation of funds and guarantee acceptable levels of transport safety. Existing bridge structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques typically involve direct instrumentation of the bridge with sensors and equipment for the measurement of properties such as frequencies of vibration. These techniques are important as they can indicate the deterioration of the bridge condition. However, they can be labour intensive and expensive due to the requirement for on-site installations. In recent years, alternative low-cost indirect vibrationbased SHM approaches have been proposed which utilise the dynamic response of a vehicle to carry out “drive-by” pavement and/or bridge monitoring. The vehicle is fitted with sensors on its axles thus reducing the need for on-site installations. This paper investigates the use of low-cost sensors incorporating global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) for implementation of the drive-by system in practice, via field trials with an instrumented vehicle. The potential of smartphone technology to be harnessed for drive by monitoring is established, while smartphone GNSS tracking applications are found to compare favourably in terms of accuracy, cost and ease of use to professional GNSS devices.

Investigating Feasibility of Drive-by Bridge Monitoring by Laboratory Experiments

A potentially powerful drive-by bridge inspection approach was proposed to inspect bridge conditions utilizing the vibrations of a test vehicle while it passes over the target bridge. This approach suffers from the effect of roadway surface roughness and two solutions were proposed in previous studies: one is to subtract the responses of two vehicles (time-domain method) before spectral analysis and the other one is to subtract the spectrum of one vehicle from that of the other (frequency-domain method). Although the two methods were verified theoretically and numerically, their practical effectiveness is still an open question.Furthermore, whether the outcome spectra processed by those methods could be used to detect potential bridge damage is of our interests. In this study, a laboratory experiment was carried out with a test tractor-trailer system and a scaled bridge. It was observed that, first, for practical applications, it would be preferable to apply the frequency-domain method, avoiding the need to meet a strict requirement in synchronizing the responses of the two trailers in time domain; second, the statistical pattern of the processed spectra in a specific frequency band could be an effective anomaly indicator incorporated in drive-by inspection methods.