Mise en pratique d'un support de cours dans le cadre d'une formation spécialisée en santé au travail à la Faculté des sciences de la santé, Université d'Abomey Calavi, Cotonou, Bénin

La promotion de la santé au travail, le transfert de connaissances et l'échange d'expériences font partie, entre autres, des missions de l'Institut universitaire romand de Santé au Travail (IST). La collaboration entre un pays industrialisé et un pays en voie de développement peut fortement contribuer à la prise de conscience d'un concept important comme celui de la santé au travail. Au Bénin, une formation spécialisée en santé au travail a été mise en place depuis une dizaine d'années. Pour soutenir ses activités de coopération, l'IST a développé, avec le soutien de l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) et avec le concours du Service de toxicologie industrielle et des pollutions intérieures de l'Etat de Genève (STIPI), le livre « Introduction à l'hygiène du travail ». Ce document représente un support de cours utile pour former des spécialistes et des intervenants en santé et sécurité au travail qui ne sont pas hygiénistes du travail. Il a été imprimé en 2007 à grande échelle dans la série « Protecting workers' health » de l'OMS et est accessible électroniquement sur le site de l'OMS. Le but de ce travail de diplôme est de mettre en pratique et d'évaluer ce support de cours dans le cadre d'une formation spécialisée en Santé au Travail à la Faculté des Sciences de la Santé de l'Université d'Abomey Calavi à Cotonou, Bénin. Le module d'hygiène du travail a été donné sur une semaine de cours. La semaine était composée de cours théoriques, de visites d'entreprises ainsi que d'un examen d'évaluation en fin de semaine. Globalement, malgré la densité du cours, les messages importants du module ont été acquis. Le support du cours est un outil permettant de transmettre les bases d'une discipline importante dans le domaine de la santé au travail, notamment dans un pays où la législation est encore balbutiante.

Educational intervention for parents of adolescents with chronic illness: a pre-post test pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: This pilot experimental study tested the feasibility and intended effect of an educational intervention for parents to help them assist their adolescent child with chronic illness (CI) in becoming autonomous. METHODS: A two-phase pre-post pilot intervention study targeting parents of adolescents with CI was conducted. Parents were allocated to group 1 and 2 and received the four-module intervention consecutively. Intended effect was measured through online questionnaires for parents and adolescents before, at 2 months after, and at 4-6 months after the intervention. Feasibility was assessed through an evaluation questionnaire for parents. RESULTS: The most useful considered modules concerned the future of the adolescent and parents and social life. The most valued aspect was to exchange with other parents going through similar problems and receiving a new outlook on their relationship with their child. For parents, improvement trends appeared for shared management, parent protection, and self-efficacy, and worsening trends appeared for coping skills, parental perception of child vulnerability, and parental stress. For adolescents, improvement trends appeared for self-efficacy and parental bonding and worsening trends appeared for shared management and coping skills. CONCLUSION: Parents could benefit from peer-to-peer support and education as they support the needed autonomy development of their child. Future studies should test an online platform for parents to find peer support at all times and places.

Diploid males support a two-step mechanism of endosymbiont-induced thelytoky in a parasitoid wasp.

BACKGROUND: Haplodiploidy, where females develop from diploid, fertilized eggs and males from haploid, unfertilized eggs, is abundant in some insect lineages. Some species in these lineages reproduce by thelytoky that is caused by infection with endosymbionts: infected females lay haploid eggs that undergo diploidization and develop into females, while males are very rare or absent. It is generally assumed that in thelytokous wasps, endosymbionts merely diploidize the unfertilized eggs, which would then trigger female development. RESULTS: We found that females in the parasitoid wasp Asobara japonica infected with thelytoky-inducing Wolbachia produce 0.7-1.2 % male offspring. Seven to 39 % of these males are diploid, indicating that diploidization and female development can be uncoupled in A. japonica. Wolbachia titer in adults was correlated with their ploidy and sex: diploids carried much higher Wolbachia titers than haploids, and diploid females carried more Wolbachia than diploid males. Data from introgression lines indicated that the development of diploid individuals into males instead of females is not caused by malfunction-mutations in the host genome but that diploid males are most likely produced when the endosymbiont fails to activate the female sex determination pathway. Our data therefore support a two-step mechanism by which endosymbionts induce thelytoky in A. japonica: diploidization of the unfertilized egg is followed by feminization, whereby each step correlates with a threshold of endosymbiont titer during wasp development. CONCLUSIONS: Our new model of endosymbiont-induced thelytoky overthrows the view that certain sex determination mechanisms constrain the evolution of endosymbiont-induced thelytoky in hymenopteran insects. Endosymbionts can cause parthenogenesis through feminization, even in groups in which endosymbiont-diploidized eggs would develop into males following the hosts' sex determination mechanism. In addition, our model broadens our understanding of the mechanisms by which endosymbionts induce thelytoky to enhance their transmission to the next generation. Importantly, it also provides a novel window to study the yet-poorly known haplodiploid sex determination mechanisms in haplodiploid insects.

Social justice in education : how the function of selection in educational institutions predicts support for (non)egalitarian assessment practices

Educational institutions are considered a keystone for the establishment of a meritocratic society. They supposedly serve two functions: an educational function that promotes learning for all, and a selection function that sorts individuals into different programs, and ultimately social positions, based on individual merit. We study how the function of selection relates to support for assessment practices known to harm vs. benefit lower status students, through the perceived justice principles underlying these practices. We study two assessment practices: normative assessment-focused on ranking and social comparison, known to hinder the success of lower status students-and formative assessment-focused on learning and improvement, known to benefit lower status students. Normative assessment is usually perceived as relying on an equity principle, with rewards being allocated based on merit and should thus appear as positively associated with the function of selection. Formative assessment is usually perceived as relying on corrective justice that aims to ensure equality of outcomes by considering students' needs, which makes it less suitable for the function of selection. A questionnaire measuring these constructs was administered to university students. Results showed that believing that education is intended to select the best students positively predicts support for normative assessment, through increased perception of its reliance on equity, and negatively predicts support for formative assessment, through reduced perception of its ability to establish corrective justice. This study suggests that the belief in the function of selection as inherent to educational institutions can contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities by preventing change from assessment practices known to disadvantage lowerstatus student, namely normative assessment, to more favorable practices, namely formative assessment, and by promoting matching beliefs in justice principles.