Psychiatric services utilization in completed suicides of a youth centres population

BACKGROUND: From a retrospective study of youth centres (YCs) and coroner's files, we investigated youths' history of medical service utilization who died by suicide. This is the second of two papers on YCs population, the first paper having shown that the rate of psychopathology was higher in the YCs population compared to the general adolescent population. METHODS: From 1995 to 2000, 422 youths, aged 18 years and younger, died as a result of suicide in Quebec. More than one-third received services from YCs at some point. Using the provincial physician payment and hospitalization database, we examined physical and psychiatric service utilization according to time intervals, as well as hospitalization for psychiatric reasons in the individuals' lifetime and in the year preceding suicide. Suicides were matched to living YCs youths for age, sex, and geographic area. YCs controls were then subdivided into two groups based on file information pertaining to the presence or absence of suicidal behavior or ideation. RESULTS: Compared to living YCs youths, suicides had a higher rate of psychiatric service utilization in the week, month, 90 days, and year preceding suicide, as well as higher levels of lifetime hospitalization for psychiatric reasons than controls with or without a history of suicidal behavior or ideation. We found that 28.3% YCs suicides made use of psychiatric services in the year preceding suicide. CONCLUSION: The rate of psychiatric service utilization by YCs youth suicides is substantially inferior to the needs of this population. Our study underscores the need for appropriate recognition of psychiatric and suicidal problems among YCs population by social and psycho-educational professionals. At the same time, it highlights the issues of general practitioners' risk identification, psychiatric referral and treatment. Our findings suggest the need for improved organization and coordination of psychiatric services to ameliorate treatment delivery

A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Cycles de l’adolescence, processus sociaux et santé mentale

C'est peut-être dans le domaine de la santé mentale de l'adolescent que les processus sociaux jouent le rôle le plus marquant; cela est montré dans trois exemples. Tout d'abord, alors que la société occidentale croit depuis longtemps que tout adolescent doit nécessairement passer par une phase de désorganisation de la personnalité, les recherches dans ce domaine ont toutes montré la fausseté de cette idée; elle n'est donc qu'un cliché socialement transmis depuis au moins deux siècles. Ensuite, une revue historique de l'apparition de la puberté détecte une évolution continue vers l'apparition de plus en plus précoce de celle-ci, de l'importance d'un changement de quatre années en deux siècles; ce changement étonnant semble surtout être attribué à des facteurs socio-économiques. Enfin une description des changements tout récents montre que le mouvement séculaire auparavant restreint à l'évolution biologique de la puberté s'étend maintenant à plusieurs aspects psychosociaux de l'adolescence, rendant l'adolescent un jeune adulte plus précocement qu'auparavant.It is perhaps in the domain of the adolescent's mental health that social processes play their most important role: this is shown in three examples. First, although western society has long held the belief that all teenagers must necessarily go through a phase of personality disorganization, all studies in this field have shown that this idea is false; it is then only a cliché that has been socially transmitted for at least two centuries. Second, an historical review of the emergence of puberty detects a continuous evolution towards an earlier and earlier beginning of it, the change in age being as important as four years, and this in only two centuries; this astonishing change seems mainly due to socio-economic factors. Finally a description of recent changes shows that this secular change, which was before limited to the biological evolution of puberty, is now being extended to many psychosocial aspects of adolescence, making the teenager a young adult earlier than before.Posiblemente es en el dominio de la salud mental de los adolescentes que los procesos sociales juegan el rol más destacado; esto se muestra en tres ejemplos. En principio, mientras la sociedad occidental cree desde hace mucho tiempo que todo adolescente debe necesariamente pasar por una fase de desorganización de la personalidad, todas las investigaciones en ese dominio han demostrado la falcedad de esa ¡dea; ella no es más que un cliché socialmente transmitido desde hace por lo menos dos siglos. En seguida, una revista histórica sobre la aparición de la pubertad, detecta una evolución continua hacia la aparición cada vez más precoz de ésta, y la importancia de un avance de cuatro años en dos siglos; este spectacular cambio párese atribuirse a factores socio-económicos. Por último, la descripción de cambios recientes muestra que el movimiento secular que se restringía a la evolución biológica de la pubertad se extiende ahora a vanos aspectos psicosociales de la adolescencia, lo que transforma al adolescente en joven adulto más precozmente que antes

Development of mAb-loaded 3D-printed (FDM) implantable devices based on PLGA

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Dry microparticles composition

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Encapsulation of immunoglobulin G by solid-in-oil-in-water: Effect of process parameters on microsphere properties.

Antibodies (Abs) are prone to a variety of physical and chemical degradation pathways, which require the development of stable formulations and specific delivery strategies. In this study, injectable biodegradable and biocompatible polymeric particles were employed for controlled-release dosage forms and the encapsulation of antibodies into polylactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) based microspheres was explored. In order to avoid stability issues which are commonly described when water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion is used, a solid-in-oil-in-water (s/o/w) method was developed and optimized. The solid phase was made of IgG microparticles and the s/o/w process was evaluated as an encapsulation method using a model Ab molecule (polyclonal bovine immunoglobulin G (IgG)). The methylene chloride (MC) commonly used for an encapsulation process was replaced by ethyl acetate (EtAc), which was considered as a more suitable organic solvent in terms of both environmental and human safety. The effects of several processes and formulation factors were evaluated on IgG:PLGA microsphere properties such as: particle size distribution, drug loading, IgG stability, and encapsulation efficiency (EE%). Several formulations and processing parameters were also statistically identified as critical to get reproducible process (e.g. the PLGA concentration, the volume of the external phase, the emulsification rate, and the quantity of IgG microparticles). The optimized encapsulation method has shown a drug loading of up to 6% (w/w) and an encapsulation efficiency of up to 60% (w/w) while preserving the integrity of the encapsulated antibody. The produced microspheres were characterized by a d(0.9) lower than 110μm and showed burst effect lower than 50% (w/w).JOURNAL ARTICLESCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Development of PLGA microparticles with high immunoglobulin G-loaded levels and sustained-release properties obtained by spray-drying a water-in-oil emulsion

In this study, the possibility of producing highly antibody-loaded microparticles with sustained-release properties was evaluated. Polyclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) was used as a model of antibody and its encapsulation into poly(lactide-co-glycolide) acid (PLGA) microparticles was performed by spray-drying a water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion. It was demonstrated that the use of the Resomer® RG505 PLGA allowed an IgG loading of 20% w/w with an encapsulation efficiency higher than 85%. The produced microparticles were characterized by a mean diameter lower than 10 µm. The burst effect was shown to reach a maximal value of 40%. IgG stability after encapsulation was also assessed. The use of this single PLGA provided a lag time of 3 months which dramatically slowed down the release rate after the initial release of the encapsulated IgG. Using blends of PLGA characterized by different inherent viscosities allowed decreasing the lag time and modulating the dissolution profile of the IgG from the spray-dried microparticles. Therefore, spray-drying a water-in-oil emulsion appeared to be a promising strategy to produce highly antibody-loaded microparticles characterized by sustained-release properties.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe