Background. Access to primary healthcare remains a public health concern for international students in Quebec. Despite their legal status and contributions to the academic system, these students face multiple barriers that hinder their use of health services. Objective. This study aims to document the main barriers to healthcare access and identify opportunities for improving institutional and community-based practices. Methods. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining a literature review, an online survey of 85 international students, and thematic analysis of open-ended responses. The analysis was guided by Levesque et al.’s (2013) conceptual framework on access to healthcare. Results. Nearly 67% of participants reported difficulties accessing care, mainly related to service costs, inadequate private insurance, administrative complexity, and lack of information. Telehealth acceptability was high (74%), and over 80% of respondents reported experiencing stress related to accessing healthcare. Conclusion. The findings highlight the urgent need to adapt health services and welcoming policies to the specific needs of international students in order to promote health equity in the Quebec academic and migratory context.

We often witness a process of « anchoring » teaching objects in students’ memories, where risk-free learning is favored over action, where contemplation is advocated over action, and where students are made to feel alienated from the master as the holder of knowledge, without any concern for creating the need for intellectual nourishment and a thirst for learning. The aim of this article is to show the value of cultivating astonishment as a risk for language learners, in order to give rise to a sense of responsibility and subjectivity associated with risk-taking as a source of progress and innovation, rather than one of alienation, which would prevent the movement of being and thinking.

This article examines the epistemological articulations between geography and sustainable development (SD) in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015. As a global normative framework for a prosperous yet sustainable world, the SDGs, when confronted with the challenge of their territorialization, revive the idea of a «Geography of Sustainable Development» (GSD), a notion debated since the 2000s but which seems to have remained stagnant despite intersections around the human–nature relationship, the question of scale, and systemic approaches. Why this reluctance to affirm a GSD? Does the territorialization of the SDGs provide a new analytical lens for geography? What contributions can geographers make to the implementation of the SDGs? Rather than claiming the existence of a GSD, our aim is to highlight the relevance of geography in scaling the 2030 Agenda. This work draws on a critical review of the literature, an analysis of global and national reports, as well as data from a doctoral thesis and interviews conducted in 2024 and 2025 within the framework of a postdoctoral fellowship supported by the Global Development Network (GDN). The findings highlight the enduring presence of SD in geography, the significant role of geographical objects in the territorial anchoring of the SDGs, and territorialization as an approach that gives meaning to a GSD.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is essential for deploying complex Computer Vision (CV) models in areas such as medical diagnosis, where transparency and accountability are required. This paper explores a hybrid interpretability framework that balances faithfulness, how well the explanation matches the model’s decision, and computational efficiency. We assess three main types of XAI: attribution-based (Grad-CAM), perturbation-based (RISE), and transformer-based attention methods. Studies show that perturbation-based methods such as RISE achieve the highest fidelity (Insertion AUC 0.727, Pointing Game Accuracy 91.9%), but they are too slow for real-time clinical use (0.05 FPS). Transformer-based XAI methods, by contrast, align more closely with expert annotations in medical tasks (IoU 0.099) and operate at a moderate speed (25.0 FPS). We suggest combining the localisation accuracy of attention-based models with the efficiency needed in clinical settings to create high-quality, useful saliency maps for medical diagnosis.

The present study focuses on the treatment of industrial effluent from the manufacturing of organic insecticides based on vegetable oil in the Guayas province, Yaguachi canton. Flow rates and composite samples were collected to determine the physicochemical characteristics and contaminant load based on the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). A pilot treatment was developed using an investigative method, and based on the data obtained from the analyses, the treatment processes were determined, including a grease trap, an activated sludge biological reactor, tertiary treatment through filtration, and a sludge drying bed. The study demonstrated that applying these treatability processes ensures that the effluent complies with the discharge limits for marine water bodies as per the Unified Text of Secondary Legislation on the Environment (TULSMA).

Child undernutrition remains a critical public health challenge in fragile and conflict-affected settings, where community-based delivery systems play a central role. This study assessed the effectiveness of the functional capacities of Community Animation Cells (CAC) in improving the nutritional status of children under five in South Kivu. Methodology: A quasi-experimental study with a non-randomized control group was conducted in the Bunyakiri Health Zone, comparing intervention and control areas. A total of 280 households with children aged 0–59 months were surveyed at baseline and endline. Quantitative data were analyzed using Difference-in-Differences models with Poisson regression and generalized estimating equations to account for clustering, complemented by qualitative thematic analysis. Results: Households exposed to strengthened CACs showed significantly higher odds of optimal infant and young child feeding practices, including continued breastfeeding up to 24 months (aOR = 1.044; p = 0.032) and adequate meal frequency (aOR = 0.689; p = 0.045). Hygiene practices such as handwashing at critical times were strongly associated with CAC activities (aOR = 1.193; p = 0.002). By April 2024, exclusive breastfeeding in the intervention zone reached 93.6% compared with 58.2% in the control zone, while children with MUAC > 125 mm increased to 95.5% versus 58.0%. Difference-in-Differences analyses confirmed a statistically significant net intervention effect on key nutrition indicators. Conclusion: Strengthening CAC functional capacities significantly improved nutrition-related practices and nutritional outcomes among children under five. Scaling up CAC-based interventions with sustained supervision and reliable nutrition supply systems is recommended to enhance community-level nutrition impact.

Psychological violence in the workplace is a major mental health issue within public higher education, university and scientific research institutions in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. This exploratory study aims to identify the specific forms of psychological violence experienced by civil servants, determine the main perpetrators and analyse the influence of certain socio-demographic characteristics on exposure to such violence. A sample of 223 employees, including administrative, technical and manual staff (PATO) and scientific staff (PS), was selected using stratified proportional sampling. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and then processed using SPSS 27 software with percentages. The results reveal that humiliation and verbal abuse are the most frequently reported forms, followed by disparaging remarks, insults, threats of dismissal and employment blackmail, with increased vulnerability among agents aged 20 to 40, with 1 to 5 years’ seniority, holding university degrees (L2, D.E.S.) and belonging mainly to the PATO. The main perpetrators identified are colleagues and immediate superiors (department heads, directors), which highlights the role of power relations and the working environment in the emergence of this type of violence and calls for the implementation of institutional measures for prevention, awareness-raising and conflict management in order to protect the psychological health of workers.

This study analyses the mental health of scientific and administrative staff at public higher education and university institutions in Kisangani, in a context marked by frequent psychological violence in the workplace. Based on Labelle et al.’s concept of psychological distress (stress, anxiety, depression), it aims to describe levels of psychological distress and examine the influence of different forms of psychological violence (verbal abuse, humiliation, derogatory remarks, insults, intimidation, blackmail) on these dimensions. A sample of 223 agents, selected by stratified sampling from among scientific, administrative, technical and manual staff, was surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire, and the data were processed using SPSS (descriptive statistics, linear regressions). The results indicate moderate to high levels of depression (M = 47.35), stress (M = 37.77) and anxiety (M = 24.39), reflecting a worrying impact on mental health, with certain forms of psychological violence, in particular verbal violence and blackmail, contributing significantly to all three dimensions of distress. Psychological violence thus appears to be a significant factor contributing to workplace distress in these institutions, which calls for the implementation of institutional measures to prevent violence, promote workplace wellbeing and provide psychological support for staff.