Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Portuguese Version of the CANHELP Lite Bereavement Questionnaire

Satisfaction with care is an important outcome measure in end-of-life care. Validated instruments are necessary to evaluate and disseminate interventions that improve satisfaction with care at the end of life, contributing to improving the quality of care offered at the end of life to the Portuguese population. The purpose of this study was to perform a cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric analysis of the Portuguese version of the CANHELP Lite Bereavement Questionnaire.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Co-producing knowledge of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) health-care inequalities via rapid reviews of grey literature in 27 EU Member States

The health inequalities experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people are well documented with several reviews of global research summarizing key inequalities. These reviews also show how the health-care needs of LGBTI people are often poorly understood whilst suggesting that targeted initiatives to reduce inequalities should involve LGBTI people

Training healthcare professionals in LGBTI cultural competencies: Exploratory findings from the Health4LGBTI pilot project

Abstract Objectives Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people experience health inequalities and barriers to accessing healthcare at a greater rate than the general population. This paper aims to present the Health4LGBTI training course for healthcare workers and the results of its pilot implementation. Methods Funded by the European Parliament, the training course was developed by a multidisciplinary team including LGBTI organisations as part of the Health4LGBTI Project. 110 healthcare professionals from diverse medical fields attended the pilot training in six European Member States. Knowledge and attitudes were compared on the basis of a pre-post evaluation design utilising an ad hoc questionnaire. Results Knowledge scores increased after the training, irrespective of age and sexual orientation of participants. Attitudes scores generally improved, particularly in terms of inclusivity and a greater acknowledgement of LGBTI health needs and self-competence. Conclusion The Health4LGBTI training course is both feasible and effective in training healthcare professionals and support staff to improve cultural competence and thereby promoting inclusive healthcare practice. Practice Implications The Health4LGBTI training course can be implemented in different healthcare contexts. Piloting of the course provided an opportunity for healthcare professionals and for support staff to improve their knowledge of, and attitudes towards, LGBTI people

LGBTI people and health inequalities

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex (LGBTI) people commonly experience a range of health and social inequalities. Such inequalities are unfair, preventable and fundamentally incompatible with public health and human rights principles. This article draws on the European Commission\u2019s Health4LGBTI pilot to highlight some of the inequalities faced by LGBTI people in EU Member States, as well as their fundamental causes in relation to health services. In doing so, we propose that mandatory training for health professionals needs to be considered as one of the main interventional avenues towards reducing the health inequalities experienced by LGBTI people

A standardized protocol for blood and cerebrospinal fluid collection and processing for biomarker research in ataxia

The European Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3/Machado-Joseph Disease Initiative (ESMI) is a consortium established with the ambition to set up the largest European longitudinal trial-ready cohort of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3/Machado Joseph disease (SCA3/MJD), the most common autosomal dominantly inherited ataxia worldwide. A major focus of ESMI has been the identification of SCA3/MJD biomarkers to enable future interventional studies. As biosample collection and processing variables significantly impact the outcomes of biomarkers studies, biosampling procedures standardization was done previously to study visit initiation. Here, we describe the ESMI consensus biosampling protocol, developed within the scope of ESMI, that ultimately might be translated to other neurodegenerative disorders, particularly ataxias, being the first step to protocol harmonization in the field

Authoritative subspecies diagnosis tool for European honey bees based on ancestryinformative SNPs

Background With numerous endemic subspecies representing four of its five evolutionary lineages, Europe holds a large fraction of Apis mellifera genetic diversity. This diversity and the natural distribution range have been altered by anthropogenic factors. The conservation of this natural heritage relies on the availability of accurate tools for subspecies diagnosis. Based on pool-sequence data from 2145 worker bees representing 22 populations sampled across Europe, we employed two highly discriminative approaches (PCA and F-ST) to select the most informative SNPs for ancestry inference. Results Using a supervised machine learning (ML) approach and a set of 3896 genotyped individuals, we could show that the 4094 selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provide an accurate prediction of ancestry inference in European honey bees. The best ML model was Linear Support Vector Classifier (Linear SVC) which correctly assigned most individuals to one of the 14 subspecies or different genetic origins with a mean accuracy of 96.2% +/- 0.8 SD. A total of 3.8% of test individuals were misclassified, most probably due to limited differentiation between the subspecies caused by close geographical proximity, or human interference of genetic integrity of reference subspecies, or a combination thereof. Conclusions The diagnostic tool presented here will contribute to a sustainable conservation and support breeding activities in order to preserve the genetic heritage of European honey bees.The SmartBees project was funded by the European Commission under its FP7 KBBE programme (2013.1.3-02, SmartBees Grant Agreement number 613960) https://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7.MP was supported by a Basque Government grant (IT1233-19). The funders provided the financial support to the research, but had no role in the design of the study, analysis, interpretations of data and in writing the manuscript

Genetic and Physical Interactions between Tel2 and the Med15 Mediator Subunit in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

International audienceBACKGROUND: In budding yeast, the highly conserved Tel2 protein is part of several complexes and its main function is now believed to be in the biogenesis of phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase related kinases. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To uncover potentially novel functions of Tel2, we set out to isolate temperature-sensitive (ts) mutant alleles of TEL2 in order to perform genetic screenings. MED15/GAL11, a subunit of Mediator, a general regulator of transcription, was isolated as a suppressor of these mutants. The isolated tel2 mutants exhibited a short telomere phenotype that was partially rescued by MED15/GAL11 overexpression. The tel2-15 mutant was markedly deficient in the transcription of EST2, coding for the catalytic subunit of telomerase, potentially explaining the short telomere phenotype of this mutant. In parallel, a two-hybrid screen identified an association between Tel2 and Rvb2, a highly conserved member of the AAA+ family of ATPases further found by in vivo co-immunoprecipitation to be tight and constitutive. Transiently overproduced Tel2 and Med15/Gal11 associated together, suggesting a potential role for Tel2 in transcription. Other Mediator subunits, as well as SUA7/TFIIB, also rescued the tel2-ts mutants. SIGNIFICANCE: Altogether, the present data suggest the existence of a novel role for Tel2, namely in transcription, possibly in cooperation with Rvb2 and involving the existence of physical interactions with the Med15/Gal11 Mediator subunit

Monitoring biodiversity change through effective global coordination

The ability to monitor changes in biodiversity, and their societal impact, is critical to conserving species and managing ecosystems. While emerging technologies increase the breadth and reach of data acquisition, monitoring efforts are still spatially and temporally fragmented, and taxonomically biased. Appropriate long-term information remains therefore limited. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) aims to provide a general framework for biodiversity monitoring to support decision makers. Here, we discuss the coordinated observing system adopted by GEO BON, and review challenges and advances in its implementation, focusing on two interconnected core components — the Essential Biodiversity Variables as a standard framework for biodiversity monitoring, and the Biodiversity Observation Networks that support harmonized observation systems — while highlighting their societal relevance