The microorganisms and metabolome of Pinus radiata Pollen.

Background: Pollen is a crucial source of nutrients and energy for pollinators. It also provides a unique habitat and resource for microbiota. Previous research on the microbiome of pollen has largely focused on angiosperm systems, with limited research into coniferous gymnosperms.

Ecological specialization and niche overlap of subterranean rodents inferred from DNA metabarcoding diet analysis.

Knowledge of how animal species use food resources available in the environment can increase our understanding of many ecological processes. However, obtaining this information using traditional methods is difficult for species feeding on a large variety of food items in highly diverse environments. We amplified the DNA of plants for 306 scat and 40 soil samples, and applied an environmental DNA metabarcoding approach to investigate food preferences, degree of diet specialization and diet overlap of seven herbivore rodent species of the genus Ctenomys distributed in southern and midwestern Brazil.

Development of a questionnaire to assess the quality of service trajectories in autism spectrum disorder from families' perspective.

Background: ETAP-1 was created to evaluate the quality of services trajectory from families' perspective. The items of ETAP-1 were developed from previous studies on integrated care, existing quality assessments, and consultations with families and experts in evaluation and in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Method: The questionnaire was completed by 200 parents of children aged 5 and under who were recently diagnosed with ASD or intellectual disability.

Quality of Life in Families of Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The present study investigated family quality of life (FQOL) as experienced by 493 mothers and fathers (295 families) of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prior to receiving early intervention services in the province of Québec. These families were most satisfied with their physical and material well-being and least satisfied with their family interactions. Children's level of functioning across various standardized and subjective measures were positively associated with parents' FQOL.

Fluctuation of the left ventricular ejection fraction in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer treated by 12 months of adjuvant trastuzumab.

Background: Cardiac toxicity with a decrease of the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is the main side effect induced by trastuzumab. This study reports the fluctuation of LVEF over the 12 months of adjuvant trastuzumab in PHARE trial (NCT00381901).

Methods: LVEF assessment was performed every 3 months while patients received trastuzumab and after completion of treatment over the first 2 years and then every 6 months afterwards.

Follow-Up of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder 1 Year After Early Behavioral Intervention.

The effectiveness of early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has been demonstrated by many studies and meta-analyses. Although it is considered an exemplary practice in several countries, few studies have investigated the maintenance of gains made in EIBI over time. Thirty-two children were assessed at posttreatment and 1-year follow-up after they attended a low-to-moderate-intensity (10 to 20 hr per week) EIBI program delivered by a public rehabilitation center.

Psychometric Properties of the Beach Center Family Quality of Life in French-Speaking Families With a Preschool-Aged Child Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale (Beach Center FQOL) is used to evaluate and develop family-centered intervention services. However, its use with families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and in non-English speaking populations requires further investigation. The present study sought to assess the psychometric properties of a French translation of this scale on 452 parents of children aged 5 and under who were recently diagnosed with ASD.

Dysarthria in individuals with Parkinson's disease: a protocol for a binational, cross-sectional, case-controlled study in French and European Portuguese (FraLusoPark).

Introduction: Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) have to deal with several aspects of voice and speech decline and thus alteration of communication ability during the course of the disease. Among these communication impairments, 3 major challenges include: (1) dysarthria, consisting of orofacial motor dysfunction and dysprosody, which is linked to the neurodegenerative processes; (2) effects of the pharmacological treatment, which vary according to the disease stage; and (3) particular speech modifications that may be language-specific, that is, dependent on the language spoken by the patients. The main objective of the FraLusoPark project is to provide a thorough evaluation of changes in PD speech as a result of pharmacological treatment and disease duration in 2 different languages (French vs European Portuguese).

Open-Source Sequence Clustering Methods Improve the State Of the Art.

Sequence clustering is a common early step in amplicon-based microbial community analysis, when raw sequencing reads are clustered into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) to reduce the run time of subsequent analysis steps. Here, we evaluated the performance of recently released state-of-the-art open-source clustering software products, namely, OTUCLUST, Swarm, SUMACLUST, and SortMeRNA, against current principal options (UCLUST and USEARCH) in QIIME, hierarchical clustering methods in mothur, and USEARCH's most recent clustering algorithm, UPARSE. All the latest open-source tools showed promising results, reporting up to 60% fewer spurious OTUs than UCLUST, indicating that the underlying clustering algorithm can vastly reduce the number of these derived OTUs.

obitools: a unix-inspired software package for DNA metabarcoding.

DNA metabarcoding offers new perspectives in biodiversity research. This recently developed approach to ecosystem study relies heavily on the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and thus calls upon the ability to deal with huge sequence data sets. The obitools package satisfies this requirement thanks to a set of programs specifically designed for analysing NGS data in a DNA metabarcoding context.

Indicators of intellectual disabilities in young children with autism spectrum disorders.

No agreement has been reached yet on the co-occurrence of Intellectual Disability (ID) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in young children. This study describes the clinical profiles of 253 children with ASD between 30 and 65 months old, on IQ and adaptive behaviors, prior to their entry in an early behavioral intervention program. Results showed that 36.

Determinants of stress in parents of children with autism spectrum disorders.

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder are known to experience more stress than parents of children with any other conditions. The current study describes the parental stress of 118 fathers and 118 mothers at the onset of their children's Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention program. The objectives of the study were to compare and analyze each parent's stress and to identify factors that might predict their stress.

Access to breast cancer screening programs for women with disabilities.

Background: The goal of this study was to identify measures to facilitate access to the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program for women with activity limitations, considering the barriers to screening uptake in that population.

Methods: The study was carried out in three stages. First, 124 semi-structured interviews were conducted in five regions of Quebec with five groups of key informants.

DISCUSSION: PRACTICE-BASED EVALUATION AS A RESPONSE TO ADRESS INTERVENTION COMPLEXITY.

The aim of this special issue of the was to present an overview of current practices in the field of evaluation of complex interventions. Seasoned evaluators described their approaches to these types of evaluation in the healthcare context. Building upon their contributions, this synthesis offers a cross-sectional reading of their experiences, highlighting the common and divergent features of their approaches as well as their most pressing concerns and interests.

Intersectoral action to employ individuals with mental illness: lessons learned from a local development initiative.

Background: Intersectoral action is now widely recognized as an effective approach to addressing the social determinants of health. In particular, collaboration between different sectors of the community has been recommended as a strategy for developing employment opportunities for persons diagnosed with mental illness. However, there is limited evidence on the actual implementation of intersectoral action between the employment and mental health sector.

Discrepancies in households and other stakeholders viewpoints on the food security experience: a gap to address.

This paper reports results from a case study on household food insecurity needs and the interventions that address them. It aimed at comparing households' perceptions on food insecurity experience and vulnerability to those of other stakeholders: community workers, programme managers and representatives from donor agencies. Semi-structured interviews with 55 households and 59 other stakeholders were conducted.

Perception of needs and responses in food security: divergence between households and stakeholders.

Objectives: The aim of the study was (i) to describe the needs of food-insecure households and their assessment of community programmes, as expressed by households and perceived by stakeholders; and (ii) to examine the similarities and differences between households' and stakeholders' perceptions in Quebec City area.

Design/setting/subjects: A semi-structured interview and sociodemographic questionnaire with fifty-five households and fifty-nine stakeholders (community workers, managers, donor agencies). The transcriptions were subjected to content analysis and inter-coder reliability measurement.

The WHO atlas on global resources for persons with intellectual disabilities: a right to health perspective.

This paper focuses on the links between the WHO atlas on global resources for persons with intellectual disabilities (Atlas-ID) project and the right to health in international human rights law. The WHO Atlas-ID project initiated by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse of the WHO was designed to collect, compile and disseminate data on intellectual disabilities services and resources throughout the world. The right to health, as linked to all other human rights, brings a set of globally agreed upon norms and standards, and out of these norms arise governmental obligations.

[Job tenure among people with mental illness].

Work integration for people with mental illness is complex and difficult. For those who obtain employment, job tenure is typically brief. The purpose of this article is to identify the personal determinants of job tenure of people with severe mental illness registered in prevocational programs.

[Barriers to socio-professional integration of people with severe mental disorders: empirical data and theoretical points of reference.].

The authors describe the barriers related to socio-professional integration of people with severe mental disorders according to different perspectives of various people involved. Focus groups (22) have been conducted in almost every region in Quebec involving 87 participants in vocational rehabilitation programs, 47 non participants and 51 employers. Eighty (80) vocational program administrator completed a questionaire.

Beyond the limitations of best practices: how logic analysis helped reinterpret dual diagnosis guidelines.

The co-occurrence of mental health and substance use disorders is becoming increasingly recognized as a single problem, and professionals recognize that both should be addressed at the same time. Medical best practices recommend integrated treatment. However, criticisms have arisen, particularly concerning the difficulty of implementing integrated teams in specific health-care contexts and the appropriateness of the proposed model for certain populations.

[Treatment retention and evolution of clientele in a low threshold methadone substitution treatment program in Montreal].

Objectives: To evaluate client treatment retention and evolution in terms of living conditions, at-risk behaviours, and the use of psychoactive substances (PAS) over a one-year period, following admission into a low-threshold methadone program in Montreal.

Method: Individual interviews were administered to 114 clients from Relais-Méthadone (RM) at admission and one year after treatment initiation. Participants reported on PAS consumption and unsafe practices of drug use and sexual behaviours at high risk for transmission of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STI) and other blood-borne viruses (BBV).

[The role of social support, family burden and satisfaction with services in psychological distress and quality of life of families of individuals with schizophrenia].

This study conducted with a sample of 71 families of individuals suffering from schizophrenia, examines by means of regression analysis, the link between support that families receive from their social network, satisfaction with mental health services, family burden and their psychological distress and quality of life. These analyses reveal that three variables predict 31 % of the variance associated with psychological distress. These variables are : obtaining counselling and advisory guidance from their network, the burden associated with daily-living and the satisfaction of services.