Contenu, contexte et enjeux sociaux de la pratique des soins infirmiers à domicile

Cette étude exploratoire a été faite en vue de mieux saisir le contenu, le contexte et les enjeux sociaux de la pratique des soins infirmiers à domicile qui ont pour but de promouvoir l'autonomie des clientèles. Les résultats présentés proviennent d'une analyse thématique du contenu de quinze heures d'entrevue de groupe conduites auprès de six infirmières représentant six des dix CLSC de la région du Québec métropolitain. On observe que la pratique des soins infirmiers s'adresse à une clientèle variée qui vit des situations de soins de plus en plus lourdes. La pratique des soins visant l'autonomie des clientèles doit s'adapter continuellement aux valeurs et au potentiel d'autonomie des personnes et des familles. Divers facteurs personnels et organisationnels limitent ou facilitent la pratique des soins à domicile. Les principaux enjeux sociaux qui marquent la pratique des soins infirmiers à domicile sont soulevés, notamment les nuances à apporter aux construits d'autonomie et de partenariat.This exploratory study is about the contents, context and social issues of nursing practice in the context of home care pursuing the goal of the client's autonomy. The findings were generated by the content analyses of group interviews (15 hours) which have been realized with the participation of six nurses representing 6 of the 10 CLSC's of the Quebec Metro. We observed that nursing interventions were addressed to a variety of clients categories presenting care situations that are becoming heavier. Nursing has to be adjusted to the values and capacity for autonomy of individuals and families. Different personal and organizational factors hinder or facilitate nursing practice at home. The main social issues caracterizing home care are discussed, and particularly the socio-cultural construction of autonomy and partnership

Self-Harm and Self-Injurious Behaviors in Female Adolescents: A Silent Epidemic, A Review in Literature

Self-harm and self-injurious behavior is a widespread problem among female adolescents. Self-injurious behaviors are a dangerous coping strategy used by many female adolescents who lack in the primary needs for managing feelings and coping mechanisms. Although several of these adolescents share an association with diagnoses of traumatic childhood experiences, major depression, alcohol/drug use/abuse, and/or other recognized mental illnesses, the act of self-harm or self-injurious behaviors is not recognized as an isolated mental disorder by the 4th Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Thus, self-harm or self-injurious behaviors continue to remain a problem that is often a silent, and sometimes, deadly behavior among today’s female adolescents. The research conducted surrounded the belief that female adolescents either go undiagnosed with regard to self-harm or self-injurious behaviors or are wrongly diagnosed and that the behavior of self-harm is often combined into categories of Emotional Disturbance. Self-injurious behaviors are not socially acceptable behaviors and therefore, many preconceived notions compromise the treatment of the adolescents. In a review of literature, and surveys of young female adolescents who engage in this behavior, the researcher will conclude that these identified behaviors in females must be acknowledged both by educators, families, and society

Le rôle des élus auprès des corporations de développement économique communautaire : des acteurs inscrits dans les réseaux et la gouvernance du développement économique local

Cette thèse est le fruit d'une recherche sur la place des élus municipaux, provinciaux et fédéraux dans la gouvernance du développement économique local à Montréal. L'étude s'est penchée sur la relation que les élus entretiennent avec les corporations de développement économique communautaire (CDÉC) de trois arrondissements de l'ancienne Ville de Montréal soit ceux de Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Sud-Ouest et Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension, entre 1990 et 2006. Notre objectif est de mieux connaître le rôle que jouent les élus auprès des organismes de développement économique local. Nous désirons également saisir l'influence des grandes réformes institutionnelles qui ont marqué le secteur du développement local, soit la création des centres locaux de développement en 1997 et la réforme municipale, implantée de 2002 à 2004. À l'aide d'un cadre d'analyse constitué de concepts associés au développement et à la gouvernance locale, nous tentons plus précisément de comprendre l'implication des élus dans les partenariats et dans les réseaux liés à ce secteur d'activité. Nous désirons également savoir si les élus jouent un rôle de leader ou encore d'interface au sein des acteurs locaux. Nous posons l'hypothèse que malgré le peu d'études dont ils ont fait l'objet, les élus ont joué un rôle significatif dans les activités des organismes de développement économique local\ud de Montréal et que celui-ci s'est accru depuis 1990. La méthode de collecte des données est de nature qualitative. La démarche empirique entreprise pour cette recherche repose principalement sur 34 entretiens semi-dirigés réalisés auprès d'élus, mais aussi auprès de dirigeants de CDÉC (CDEST, RESO et CDÉC Centre-Nord) ainsi que de fonctionnaires municipaux et provinciaux. Cette démarche a été complétée par une recherche documentaire (archives des CDÉC, documents gouvernementaux et journaux). À la lumière de l'analyse effectuée, nous concluons que malgré l'acquisition de nouvelles compétences peu d'élus locaux font preuve de leadership en matière de développement économique local et qu'aucun d'entre eux ne s'impose comme interface entre les différents acteurs engagés dans ce type de processus. La majorité des élus se contente d'agir comme articulateur dans les réseaux, principalement comme intermédiaires entre différents acteurs locaux ou comme représentants auprès de l'État, et de s'impliquer de temps à autre dans les partenariats État-CDÉC. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Élus, Développement économique local, Gouvernance, Corporation de développement économique communautaire, Montréal

The Sedimentary Environment Below Earth’s Polar Ice Cap as a Microbial Habitat

University of Rhode Island faculty participated in drilling of the polar ice cap to study microbial diversity and adaptation to subsurface life under conditions that may mimic extraterrestrial subsurface conditions

The duration of motor responses evoked with intracortical microstimulation in rats is primarily modulated by stimulus amplitude and train duration

Microstimulation of brain tissue plays a key role in a variety of sensory prosthetics, clinical therapies and research applications, however the effects of stimulation parameters on the responses they evoke remain widely unknown. In particular, the effects of parameters when delivered in the form of a stimulus train as opposed to a single pulse are not well understood despite the prevalence of stimulus train use. We aimed to investigate the contribution of each parameter of a stimulus train to the duration of the motor responses they evoke in forelimb muscles. We used constant-current, biphasic, square wave pulse trains in acute terminal experiments under ketamine anaesthesia. Stimulation parameters were systematically tested in a pair-wise fashion in the caudal forelimb region of the motor cortex in 7 Sprague-Dawley rats while motor evoked potential (MEP) recordings from the forelimb were used to quantify the influence of each parameter in the train. Stimulus amplitude and train duration were shown to be the dominant parameters responsible for increasing the total duration of the MEP, while interphase interval had no effect. Increasing stimulus frequency from 100200 Hz or pulse duration from 0.18-0.34 ms were also effective methods of extending response durations. Response duration was strongly correlated with peak time and amplitude. Our findings suggest that motor cortex intracortical microstimulations are often conducted at a higher frequency rate and longer train duration than necessary to evoke maximal response duration. We demonstrated that the temporal properties of the evoked response can be both predicted by certain response metrics and modulated via alterations to the stimulation signal parameters

An Additional Motor-Related Field in the Lateral Frontal Cortex of Squirrel Monkeys

Our earlier efforts to document the cortical connections of the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) revealed dense connections with a field rostral and lateral to PMv, an area we called the frontal rostral field (FR). Here, we present data collected in FR using electrophysiological and anatomical methods. Results show that FR contains an isolated motor representation of the forelimb that can be differentiated from PMv based on current thresholds and latencies to evoke electromyographic activity using intracortical microstimulation techniques. In addition, FR has a different pattern of cortical connections compared with PMv. Together, these data support that FR is an additional, previously undescribed motor-related area in squirrel monkeys

Recommender Thermometer for Measuring the Preparedness for Flood Resilience Management

A range of various thermometers and similar scales are employed in different human and resilience management activities: Distress Thermometer, Panic Thermometer, Fear Thermometer, fire danger rating, hurricane scales, earthquake scales (Richter Magnitude Scale, Mercalli Scale), Anxiety Thermometer, Help Thermometer, Problem Thermometer, Emotion Thermometer, Depression Thermometer, the Torino scale (assessing asteroid/comet impact prediction), Excessive Heat Watch, etc. Extensive financing of the preparedness for flood resilience management with overheated full-scale resilience management might be compared to someone ill running a fever of 41°C. As the financial crisis hits and resilience management financing cools down it reminds a sick person whose body temperature is too low. The degree indicated by the Recommender Thermometer for Measuring the Preparedness for Flood Resilience Management with a scale between Tmin=34,0° and Tmax=42,0° shows either cool or overheated preparedness for flood resilience management. The formalized presentation of this research shows how changes in the micro, meso and macro environment of resilience management and the extent to which the goals pursued by various interested parties are met cause corresponding changes in the “temperature” of the preparedness for resilience management. Global innovative aspects of the Recommender Thermometer developed by the authors of this paper are, primarily, its capacity to measure the “temperature” of the preparedness for flood resilience management automatically, to compile multiple alternative recommendations (preparedness for floods, including preparing your home for floods, taking precautions against a threat of floods, retrofitting for flood-prone areas, checking your house insurance; preparedness for bushfires, preparedness for cyclones, preparedness for severe storms, preparedness for heat waves, etc.) customised for a specific user, to perform multiple criteria analysis of the recommendations, and to select the ten most rational ones for that user. Across the world, no other system offers these functions yet. The Recommender Thermometer was developed and fine-tuned in the course of the Android (Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimise educational Development) project

\u3cem\u3eVibrio cholerae\u3c/em\u3e Exploits Sub-Lethal Concentrations of a Competitor-Produced Antibiotic to Avoid Toxic Interactions

Vibrio cholerae is a human pathogenic marine bacterium inhabiting coastal regions and is vectored into human food and water supplies via attachment to particles including detritus, phytoplankton, and zooplankton. Particle colonization by the pathogen is inhibited by an antagonistic interaction with the particle-associated Vibrionales bacterium SWAT3, a producer of the antibiotic andrimid. By analyzing the individual movement behaviors of V. cholerae exposed to a gradient of andrimid in a microfluidics device, we show that the pathogen has a concentration dependent avoidance response to sub-lethal concentrations of the pure antibiotic and to the metabolites produced by a growing colony of SWAT3-wild-type. This avoidance behavior includes a 25% increase in swimming speeds, 30% increase in run lengths, and a shift in the direction of the bacteria away from the andrimid source. Consequently, these behavioral shifts at low concentrations of andrimid would lead to higher diffusivity and result in the dispersion of bacteria away from the competitor and source of the antibiotic. Such alterations in motility were not elicited in response to a non-andrimid-producing SWAT3 mutant, suggesting andrimid may be a negative effector of chemotaxis for V. cholerae. The behavioral response of colonizing bacteria to sub-inhibitory concentrations of competitor-produced antibiotics is one mechanism that can influence microbial diversity and interspecific competition on particles, potentially affecting human health in coastal communities and element cycling in the ocean