Publications by authors named "Blouin A"

Article Synopsis
  • A team of over 180 researchers from more than 40 countries is addressing the issues related to "phantom agents," which are proposed pathogenic agents that are listed without concrete evidence of their existence.
  • These phantom agents, identified only through symptoms and lacking proper isolates or genetic data, create obstacles for trade and plant certification, making effective detection and risk assessment difficult.
  • The researchers recommend removing these agents from regulatory lists and updating standards in line with modern diagnostic methods to facilitate germplasm exchange and support global agriculture.
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As the healthcare market continues to evolve, technology plays a growing role in an integrated delivery system's ability to provide high-quality, cost-effective care. Healthcare leaders must be proactive and forward-thinking about their technology investments because the financial investment for technology innovation can be significant. Healthcare leaders must deliberately design the role of technology and develop a consistent method for evaluating, identifying, and prioritizing technology investments.

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Chimerism analysis by next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an emerging method for engraftment monitoring after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. A high-sensitivity method is required for the detection of microchimerism (<1% chimerism), which may have clinical utility in early relapse detection, allograft monitoring in organ transplantation, and other allogeneic cellular therapies (such as microtransplantations). As more clinical laboratories adopt this method, a thorough assessment of performance is needed.

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In 2014, Physostegia chlorotic mottle virus (PhCMoV) was discovered in Austria in . Subsequent collaborative efforts established a link between the virus and severe fruit symptoms on important crops such as tomato, eggplant, and cucumber across nine European countries. Thereafter, specific knowledge gaps, which are crucial to assess the risks PhCMoV can pose for production and how to manage it, needed to be addressed.

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Early detection of psychotic-spectrum disorders among adolescents and young adults is crucial, as the initial years after psychotic symptom onset encompass a critical period in which psychosocial and pharmacological interventions are most effective. Moreover, clinicians and researchers in recent decades have thoroughly characterized psychosis-risk syndromes, in which youth are experiencing early warning signs indicative of heightened risk for developing a psychotic disorder. These insights have created opportunities for intervention even earlier in the illness course, ideally culminating in the prevention or mitigation of psychosis onset.

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  • A novel tri-segmented RNA virus named "Mercurialis latent virus" (MeLaV) infects the plant Mercurialis annua, first identified in Switzerland alongside another virus, Mercurialis orthotospovirus 1 (MerV1).
  • Both viruses are transmitted by Thrips tabaci, suggesting these insects facilitate the spread of MeLaV, especially through infected pollen.
  • Genome sequencing revealed MeLaV's close relationship to Ilarvirus subgroup members and a surprising sequence similarity to grapevine angular mosaic virus (GAMV), challenging previous assumptions about GAMV's role in grapevine disease and indicating potential misidentifications in earlier studies.
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  • * New Zealand has successfully developed integrated pest management (IPM) strategies over the past 20 years to combat GLD, focusing on ecosystem-based biological solutions and research specifically tailored to the country's grape production conditions.
  • * The review outlines advancements in diagnosing GLRaV-3, studies on its vectors' ecology, and economic implications of disease management strategies, highlighting collaborative efforts of researchers and the New Zealand Winegrowers to effectively address GLD.
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  • Inosine triphosphate pyrophosphatases (ITPases) help cellular organisms avoid harmful mutations caused by certain purines, with evidence of their presence in plant RNA viruses affecting euphorbia species, particularly in cassava.
  • High-throughput RNA sequencing on the wild euphorbia species Mercurialis perennis led to the discovery of two new viruses (from the Potyviridae and Secoviridae families) that both encode ITPases, along with a new partitivirid, but only one virus was pathogenic.
  • Phylogenetic analyses showed that the ITPases in these new viruses likely originated from separate horizontal gene transfers, while the endogenous ITPase in M. perennis
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Validated, multicomponent treatments designed to address symptoms and functioning of individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis are currently lacking. The authors report findings of a study with such individuals participating in step-based care-a program designed to provide low-intensity, non-psychosis-specific interventions and advancement to higher-intensity, psychosis-specific interventions only if an individual is not meeting criteria for a clinical response. Among individuals with symptomatic or functional concerns at enrollment, 67% met criteria for a symptomatic response (median time to response=11.

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In 2020, symptoms of putative viral origin were observed on 7% of tomatoes in an organic vegetable farm in Belgium (deformed uneven ripened fruits, vein clearing, mosaic and purple leaves, stunted plants). The leaves of twenty symptomatic plants were collected, pooled and screened for viruses using high throughput sequencing technologies (HTS) on Illumina NextSeq500 following a virion-associated nucleic acid (VANA) protocol (Temple et al., 2021, Be_SL1).

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Introduction: To validate the Group for Learning Useful and Performant Swallowing (GLUPS), a clinical tool dedicated to videofluoroscopy swallowing study (VFSS).

Methods: Forty-five individuals were recruited from January 2022 to March 2023 from the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery of University Hospital Saint-Pierre (Brussels, Belgium). Subjects underwent VFSS, which was rated with GLUPS tool by two blinded otolaryngologists and one speech-therapist.

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Addressing the current and future nursing workforce shortage is the most pressing topic on healthcare leaders' agenda. The pandemic worsened a looming problem, driven both by supply and demand. Classic strategies deployed in past shortages are useful but are not sufficient to guide scarce resource management in the future.

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In this study, the authors measured and described the costs of coordinated specialty care (CSC) for first-episode psychosis in Ohio. A microcosting tool was used to estimate personnel and nonpersonnel costs of service delivery at seven CSC programs. Average annual cost per participant (N=511 participants) was estimated as $17,810 (95% CI=$9,141-$26,479).

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Article Synopsis
  • In April 2023, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) approved changes to the phylum's classification during their annual vote.
  • The update included the addition of one new family, 14 new genera, and 140 new species.
  • Additionally, the taxonomy featured the renaming of two genera and 538 species, along with the removal of one species and the abolition of four others.
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  • T cells play a significant role in inflammatory diseases, and this study aimed to better understand the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoires found in various human tissues, especially in relation to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).
  • Researchers analyzed TCR repertoires in autopsied tissues from patients with and without GVHD, and also in mouse models, finding that similar tissue types had comparable TCR compositions, regardless of disease status.
  • The study revealed that tissue resident T cells, primarily of donor origin, had unique signatures and characteristics that differed from those found in blood, emphasizing the need to focus on tissue analysis for insights into inflammatory conditions.
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High-throughput sequencing (HTS) and sequence mining tools revolutionized virus detection and discovery in recent years, and implementing them with classical plant virology techniques results in a powerful approach to characterize viruses. An example of a virus discovered through HTS is Solanum nigrum ilarvirus 1 (SnIV1) (), which was recently reported in various solanaceous plants from France, Slovenia, Greece, and South Africa. It was likewise detected in grapevines () and several and plant species.

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  • PIK3CA mutations in meningiomas are rare but significant, suggesting they may be potential targets for therapy due to their occurrence in both benign and malignant tumors, including those influenced by hormones.
  • Researchers used genetically engineered mouse models to show that these mutations in meningeal cells can lead to the formation and progression of meningiomas, while hormone exposure alone does not trigger tumor growth in this context.
  • The study also revealed that while hormone presence increases mutation burden in PIK3CA-mutant conditions, it primarily drives breast tumor formation rather than meningioma development, highlighting the dominant role of PIK3CA mutations in meningioma tumorigenesis.
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Lettuce ring necrosis virus (LRNV), genus Ophiovirus, was detected by the Netherlands Institute for Vectors, Invasive plants and Plant health (NIVIP) in June and November of 2021 in two samples of chili pepper fruits (Capsicum spp.), both in mixed infection with other viruses. The first sample originated from a production site in Belgium (Sample ID: 40009704) and the second from a production site in the Netherlands (Sample ID: 41115269).

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Modern agriculture has influenced plant virus emergence through ecosystem simplification, introduction of new host species, and reduction in crop genetic diversity. Therefore, it is crucial to better understand virus distributions across cultivated and uncultivated communities in agro-ecological interfaces, as well as virus exchange among them. Here, we advance fundamental understanding in this area by characterizing the virome of three co-occurring replicated community types that represent a gradient of grass species richness and management intensity, from highly managed crop monocultures to little-managed, species-rich grasslands.

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