Working or studying is a common goal among people with recent-onset psychosis. Cognitive deficits have been reported to influence occupational outcome, but to date few studies have evaluated if cognitive deficits independently predict occupational outcome when taking into account other important determinants, such as self-esteem, motivation, length of time absent from employment/school, job/school search behaviours, subjective cognitive complaints and psychotic symptoms. Hence, this longitudinal study aimed to evaluate the role of cognition, as well as other key factors relevant to occupational outcome, to predict occupational status six months after baseline in people with recent-onset psychosis. A total of 27 participants receiving treatment in rehabilitation programs were included in the study. Neuropsychological, psychological, clinical and occupational measures were administered at baseline, and occupational status was collected six months later. Ordinal regression indicated that working memory and length of time absent from employment/school at baseline predicted 48.1% of the variance of occupational status at six months, with both variables showing a unique significant contribution to the model. These results suggest that working memory could be integrated in comprehensive models of occupational outcome in people with recent-onset psychosis. In addition, supported employment and education programs could target cognitive deficits and length of time absent from employment/school to help these individuals to acquire a job or return to school given their strong predictive value on occupational outcome.

The intraspecific diversity of cacao has traditionally been preserved in genebanks. However, these establishments face various challenges, notably insufficient funding, accession redundancy, misidentification and lack of wild cacao population samples. In natural environments, it is expected that unknown varieties of cacao may still be found, but wild populations of cacao are increasingly threatened by climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, land use changes and poor knowledge. Farmers also retain diversity, but on-farm conservation is affected by geopolitical, economic, management and cultural issues, that are influenced at multiple scales, from the household to the international market. Taking separately, ex situ, in situ and on-farm conservation have not achieved adequate conservation fostering the inclusion of all stakeholders and the broad use of cacao diversity. We analyze the use of the traditional conservation strategies (ex situ, in situ and on-farm) and propose an integrated approach based on local working collections to secure cacao diversity in the long term. We argue that national conservation networks should be implemented in countries of origin to simultaneously maximize alpha (diversity held in any given working collection), beta (the change in diversity between working collections in different regions) and gamma diversity (overall diversity in a country).

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Background Deficits in theory of mind (ToM), the ability to infer the mental states of others, are common in psychotic disorders and are associated with functioning difficulties. While ToM is a social cognitive process, several neurocognitive processes are involved when inferring the mental states of others. A better understanding of the associations between ToM and neurocognitive domains could help better target treatment for ToM in schizophrenia. A recent meta-analysis has revealed that all neurocognitive domains are moderately associated with ToM in schizophrenia, but very few studies have looked at these associations in recent onset psychosis. These studies showed associations between ToM and speed of processing, episodic memory and executive functions although few neurocognitive domains have been assessed in each study. The aim of this study was to determine the associations between ToM and the key neurocognitive domains in recent onset psychosis. Methods These results are part of a larger study that aimed to determine the cognitive predictors of return to work or school in recent onset psychosis. Twenty-seven recent onset psychosis patients were recruited for this study, with a mean age of 24.9 years. The clinical assessment included the Combined Stories Test for ToM and the Matrics Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) for neurocognition. The MCCB assesses the key cognitive domains relevant for schizophrenia, including attention/vigilance, speed of processing, working memory, verbal learning, visual learning, reasoning/problem solving and social cognition. Pearson correlations were conducted between the ToM scores of the Combined Stories Test and each neurocognitive domain of the MCCB. Results Correlations revealed a moderate to strong association between ToM and working memory (r = 0.443, p = 0.021), visual learning (r = 0.493, p = 0.009) and verbal learning (r = 0.443, p = 0.021). The correlations between ToM and attention/vigilance, speed of processing and reasoning/problem solving were not significant (p > 0.05). Discussion This is the first study that has assessed the associations between ToM and the neurocognitive domains of the MCCB in recent onset psychosis. This study did not show association between ToM and speed of processing nor executive functions, but rather with working memory and learning. These contradictory results could be explained by the large heterogeneity of tasks used across studies, particularly ToM tasks that often present with psychometric limitations such as ceiling effect. Learning processes highlighted here should be considered in the understanding of the therapeutic response following a cognitive remediation therapy for ToM in recent onset psychosis.

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