Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide(1). The microbiota-gut-brain axis may play a role in the aetiology of depression, and probiotics show promise for improving mood and depressive state(2). Further evidence is required to support mechanisms and in high-risk populations, such as those with sub-threshold depression (which may be 2-3 times more prevalent than diagnosed depression)(3). The aims were to assess the efficacy of a probiotic compared with placebo in reducing the severity of depressive symptoms in participants with subthreshold depression, and to investigate potential mechanistic markers of inflammatory, antioxidant status and stress response. A double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in participants meeting diagnosis of subthreshold depression (DSM-5); aged 18-65 years; ≥18.5 kg/m2 body mass index; not taking antidepressants, centrally acting medications, probiotics nor antibiotics for at least 6 weeks. The probiotic (4 × 109 AFU/CFU, 2.5 g freeze-dried powder containing Lactobacillus fermentum LF16 (DSM26956), L. rhamnosus LR06 (DSM21981), L. plantarum LP01 (LMG P-21021), Bifidobacterium longum BL04 (DSM 23233)) or placebo was taken daily for 3-months. Data was collected at 3 study visits (pre-, mid- (6 weeks), post-intervention). Self-reported questionnaires measured psychological symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory, BDI; Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale, HADS) and quality of life. Blood and salivary samples were collected for biomarkers including cortisol awakening response (CAR). General linear models examined within-group and between-group differences across all time points. Thirty-nine participants completed the study (n = 19 probiotic; n = 20 placebo) using intention-to-treat analysis. The probiotic group decreased in BDI score by −6.5 (95% CI −12.3; −0.7) and −7.6 (95% CI −13.4; −1.8) at 6 and 12 weeks, respectively. The HADS-A score decreased in the probiotic group by −2.8 (95% CI −5.2; −0.4) and −2.7 (95% CI −5.1; −0.3) at 6 and 12, respectively. The HADS-D score decreased in the probiotic group by −3.0 (95% CI −5.4; −0.7) and −2.5 (−4.9; −0.2) at 6 and 12 weeks of intervention, respectively. No between group differences were found. There were no changes in perceived stress or quality of life scores. The probiotic group had reduced hs-CRP levels (7286.2 ± 1205.8 ng/dL vs. 5976.4 ± 1408.3; P = 0.003) and increased total glutathione (14.2 ± 8.9 ng/dL vs. 9.3 ± 4.7; P = 0.049) compared to placebo, post intervention. Lower levels of CAR were found in the probiotic compared to placebo (−0.04 ± 0.17 μg/dL vs. 0.16 ± 0.25; P = 0.009). A significant reduction in depressive symptoms and anxiety was observed within the probiotic group only. These results were supported by improvements observed in biomarkers, suggesting probiotics may improve psychological wellbeing in adults experiencing sub-threshold depression, by potential pathways involved in central nervous system homeostasis and inflammation. Future analyses are required to understand changes within the intestinal microbiota and to clarify how their metabolites facilitate emotional processing.

We evaluated diagnostic test and antibiotic utilization among 252 patients from 11 US hospitals who were evaluated for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia during the severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) omicron variant pandemic wave. In our cohort, antibiotic use remained high (62%) among SARS-CoV-2–positive patients and even higher among those who underwent procalcitonin testing (68%).

The Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope has carried out a survey of the entire Southern Sky at 887.5 MHz. The wide area, high angular resolution, and broad bandwidth provided by the low-band Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS-low) allow the production of a next-generation rotation measure (RM) grid across the entire Southern Sky. Here we introduce this project as Spectral and Polarisation in Cutouts of Extragalactic sources from RACS (SPICE-RACS). In our first data release, we image 30 RACS-low fields in Stokes I, Q, U at 25$^{\prime\prime}$ angular resolution, across 744–1032 MHz with 1 MHz spectral resolution. Using a bespoke, highly parallelised, software pipeline we are able to rapidly process wide-area spectro-polarimetric ASKAP observations. Notably, we use ‘postage stamp’ cutouts to assess the polarisation properties of 105912 radio components detected in total intensity. We find that our Stokes Q and U images have an rms noise of $\sim$80 $\unicode{x03BC}$Jy PSF$^{-1}$, and our correction for instrumental polarisation leakage allows us to characterise components with $\gtrsim$1% polarisation fraction over most of the field of view. We produce a broadband polarised radio component catalogue that contains 5818 RM measurements over an area of $\sim$1300 deg$^{2}$ with an average error in RM of $1.6^{+1.1}_{-1.0}$ rad m$^{-2}$, and an average linear polarisation fraction $3.4^{+3.0}_{-1.6}$ %. We determine this subset of components using the conditions that the polarised signal-to-noise ratio is $>$8, the polarisation fraction is above our estimated polarised leakage, and the Stokes I spectrum has a reliable model. Our catalogue provides an areal density of $4\pm2$ RMs deg$^{-2}$; an increase of $\sim$4 times over the previous state-of-the-art (Taylor, Stil, Sunstrum 2009, ApJ, 702, 1230). Meaning that, having used just 3% of the RACS-low sky area, we have produced the 3rd largest RM catalogue to date. This catalogue has broad applications for studying astrophysical magnetic fields; notably revealing remarkable structure in the Galactic RM sky. We will explore this Galactic structure in a follow-up paper. We will also apply the techniques described here to produce an all-Southern-sky RM catalogue from RACS observations. Finally, we make our catalogue, spectra, images, and processing pipeline publicly available.

The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery (WCPCCS) will be held in Washington DC, USA, from Saturday, 26 August, 2023 to Friday, 1 September, 2023, inclusive. The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery will be the largest and most comprehensive scientific meeting dedicated to paediatric and congenital cardiac care ever held. At the time of the writing of this manuscript, The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery has 5,037 registered attendees (and rising) from 117 countries, a truly diverse and international faculty of over 925 individuals from 89 countries, over 2,000 individual abstracts and poster presenters from 101 countries, and a Best Abstract Competition featuring 153 oral abstracts from 34 countries. For information about the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, please visit the following website: [www.WCPCCS2023.org]. The purpose of this manuscript is to review the activities related to global health and advocacy that will occur at the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

Acknowledging the need for urgent change, we wanted to take the opportunity to bring a common voice to the global community and issue the Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action on Addressing the Global Burden of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Diseases. A copy of this Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action is provided in the Appendix of this manuscript. This Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action is an initiative aimed at increasing awareness of the global burden, promoting the development of sustainable care systems, and improving access to high quality and equitable healthcare for children with heart disease as well as adults with congenital heart disease worldwide.

We present a comparison between the performance of a selection of source finders (SFs) using a new software tool called Hydra. The companion paper, Paper I, introduced the Hydra tool and demonstrated its performance using simulated data. Here we apply Hydra to assess the performance of different source finders by analysing real observational data taken from the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) Pilot Survey. EMU is a wide-field radio continuum survey whose primary goal is to make a deep ($20\mu$Jy/beam RMS noise), intermediate angular resolution ($15^{\prime\prime}$), 1 GHz survey of the entire sky south of $+30^{\circ}$ declination, and expecting to detect and catalogue up to 40 million sources. With the main EMU survey it is highly desirable to understand the performance of radio image SF software and to identify an approach that optimises source detection capabilities. Hydra has been developed to refine this process, as well as to deliver a range of metrics and source finding data products from multiple SFs. We present the performance of the five SFs tested here in terms of their completeness and reliability statistics, their flux density and source size measurements, and an exploration of case studies to highlight finder-specific limitations.

The latest generation of radio surveys are now producing sky survey images containing many millions of radio sources. In this context it is highly desirable to understand the performance of radio image source finder (SF) software and to identify an approach that optimises source detection capabilities. We have created Hydra to be an extensible multi-SF and cataloguing tool that can be used to compare and evaluate different SFs. Hydra, which currently includes the SFs Aegean, Caesar, ProFound, PyBDSF, and Selavy, provides for the addition of new SFs through containerisation and configuration files. The SF input RMS noise and island parameters are optimised to a 90% ‘percentage real detections’ threshold (calculated from the difference between detections in the real and inverted images), to enable comparison between SFs. Hydra provides completeness and reliability diagnostics through observed-deep ($\mathcal{D}$) and generated-shallow ($\mathcal{S}$) images, as well as other statistics. In addition, it has a visual inspection tool for comparing residual images through various selection filters, such as S/N bins in completeness or reliability. The tool allows the user to easily compare and evaluate different SFs in order to choose their desired SF, or a combination thereof. This paper is part one of a two part series. In this paper we introduce the Hydra software suite and validate its $\mathcal{D/S}$ metrics using simulated data. The companion paper demonstrates the utility of Hydra by comparing the performance of SFs using both simulated and real images.

We present the data and initial results from the first pilot survey of the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), observed at 944 MHz with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. The survey covers $270 \,\mathrm{deg}^2$ of an area covered by the Dark Energy Survey, reaching a depth of 25–30 $\mu\mathrm{Jy\ beam}^{-1}$ rms at a spatial resolution of $\sim$ 11–18 arcsec, resulting in a catalogue of $\sim$ 220 000 sources, of which $\sim$ 180 000 are single-component sources. Here we present the catalogue of single-component sources, together with (where available) optical and infrared cross-identifications, classifications, and redshifts. This survey explores a new region of parameter space compared to previous surveys. Specifically, the EMU Pilot Survey has a high density of sources, and also a high sensitivity to low surface brightness emission. These properties result in the detection of types of sources that were rarely seen in or absent from previous surveys. We present some of these new results here.

We have found a class of circular radio objects in the Evolutionary Map of the Universe Pilot Survey, using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. The objects appear in radio images as circular edge-brightened discs, about one arcmin diameter, that are unlike other objects previously reported in the literature. We explore several possible mechanisms that might cause these objects, but none seems to be a compelling explanation.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) is the first large-area survey to be conducted with the full 36-antenna Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. RACS will provide a shallow model of the ASKAP sky that will aid the calibration of future deep ASKAP surveys. RACS will cover the whole sky visible from the ASKAP site in Western Australia and will cover the full ASKAP band of 700–1800 MHz. The RACS images are generally deeper than the existing NRAO VLA Sky Survey and Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey radio surveys and have better spatial resolution. All RACS survey products will be public, including radio images (with $\sim$ 15 arcsec resolution) and catalogues of about three million source components with spectral index and polarisation information. In this paper, we present a description of the RACS survey and the first data release of 903 images covering the sky south of declination $+41^\circ$ made over a 288-MHz band centred at 887.5 MHz.

We characterized the impact of removal of the ESBL designation from microbiology reports on inpatient antibiotic prescribing. Definitive prescribing of carbapenems decreased from 48.4% to 16.1% (P = .01) and β-lactam–β-lactamase inhibitor combination increased from 19.4% to 61.3% (P = .002). Our findings confirm the importance of collaboration between microbiology and antimicrobial stewardship programs.

Poor school connectedness (SC), defined as students’ feelings of belonging, safety, and fairness at school, is a risk factor for negative psychosocial outcomes. Few studies have examined the specific relationship between SC and anxiety. This study examined the relation between SC and anxiety within a group of 114 clinically anxious youth (mean age = 10.82; SD = 2.93; 48.2% female; 70.2% White, non-Hispanic); age differences were also examined. Results indicated that SC was significantly negatively associated with age but unrelated to gender, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, parent education, or presence of a comorbid disorder. Findings generally revealed that low SC was associated with greater total and domain specific anxiety. SC may play a unique role in the maintenance of global and domain specific anxiety symptoms.

The Asian elephant Elephas maximus is at risk of extinction as a result of anthropogenic pressures, and remaining populations are often small and fragmented remnants, occupying a fraction of the species' former range. Once widely distributed across China, only a maximum of 245 elephants are estimated to survive across seven small populations. We assessed the Asian elephant population in Nangunhe National Nature Reserve in Lincang Prefecture, China, using camera traps during May–July 2017, to estimate the population size and structure of this genetically important population. Although detection probability was low (0.31), we estimated a total population size of c. 20 individuals, and an effective density of 0.39 elephants per km2. Social structure indicated a strong sex ratio bias towards females, with only one adult male detected within the population. Most of the elephants associated as one herd but three adult females remained separate from the herd throughout the trapping period. These results highlight the fragility of remnant elephant populations such as Nangunhe and we suggest options such as a managed metapopulation approach for their continued survival in China and more widely.

Introduction: GridlockED is an educational (or “serious”) game recently developed by a team at McMaster to teach medical learners about patient flow in the emergency department (ED). Beyond patient flow, we were cognizant that the game could provide additional learning opportunities for learners. The goal of this program evaluation project was to investigate workshop attendees’ experiences and identify what areas they found most educational. Methods: A GridlockED board game workshop was developed and delivered in several locations over the fall of 2018. Workshops targeted medical learners and were organized by local emergency medicine interest groups. After a standardized video-based introduction to the game concept and rules, the learners played GridlockED for approximately 90 minutes. After the play session, learners completed an anonymous survey consisting of 7-point Likert scale questions about their experience. They were also asked to identify the learning domains for which GridlockED was developed (Patient Flow, Communication and Teamwork, and ED Basics), and were asked via free-text to identify learning objectives from their experience. We received an exemption for this study from our institutional review board. Results: We had 25 respondents (24 medical students and 1 resident). Trainees rated GridlockED as both enjoyable to play and as a meaningful educational experience, with an average rating of 6.56 (SD 0.94) for enjoyability and 6.44 (0.92) for education. When asked what targeted learning domain was most helpful, 45% of students identified patient flow, 37% teamwork and communication, and only 18% ED basics. When asked to identify their top three areas of learning in open-ended responses, students actually identified resource management most frequently (48%), with improved communication skills (40%) as the second most prominent learning objective. Other interesting self-identified learning points were: a greater appreciation of the role of various providers (24%), the unpredictability of ED care (12%), and how things can go wrong (12%). Conclusion: Medical learners find GridlockED to be both enjoyable and educational. In our targeted areas of learning they found patient flow to be the most educational, but self-identified multiple other areas for learning. Students identified resource management and communication as key areas of learning, suggesting that future workshops might be designed specifically to teach these skills.

Introduction: In 2016, a team at McMaster began developing GridlockED, an educational (or “serious”) board game designed to teach medical learners about patient flow in the emergency department. As serious board games are a relatively new phenomenon in medical education, there is little data on how marketed games are actually used once received by end-users. In this study our goal was to better understand the demographics and game usage for purchasers of the GridlockED board game, which will inform the further improvement or expansion of the game. Methods: Individuals who expressed interest in purchasing gridlockED via our online storefront were sent an anonymous online survey via Google Form. The survey collected demographic and qualitative data with a focus on the respondent's role in medicine, how they have used GridlockED, who they have played GridlockED with, and what changes or additions to GridlockED they would like to see. We also asked about changes for a potential mass-market version of the game targeted towards non-medical individuals. Individuals who did not purchase the game were asked about their barriers to purchase. We received an exemption for this study from our institutional review board. Results: 42 responses (out of 300 individuals on our mailing list, 14% response rate) were collected. Responding purchasers were from 16 different roles in healthcare and 11 different countries. The top 5 roles were: EM trainee, Community EM MD, Academic EM MD, Physicians from other specialties, and EM program director. The majority of respondents were Canadian (38%), with America (21%), New Zealand (10%), and Turkey (7%) the only other countries to have more than 2 respondents. 50% reported having played the game, with the most common use cases being for fun (76%), for teaching trainees (33%) or training with colleagues (19%). For those who did not purchase, price was the largest barrier (81%). 50% of respondents expressed interest in a disaster scenario expansion pack, with 33% interested in set lesson plans. Conclusion: GridlockED attracted interest from a wide range of medical professionals, both in terms or role and location. Users mainly reported using the game for fun, with fewer users using the game for teaching/training purposes. The main barrier to purchase was the game's price.

Barnyardgrass [Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv. # ECHCG] spikelets were collected from greenhouse-grown plants at various developmental stages. Caryopses contained in a single spikelet were dormant at maturity, but dormancy was overcome when the spikelets were dry afterripened at 23 C or were treated with high temperatures, acid scarification, or punctured with a scalpel. The season at which anthesis occurred affected the length of time for afterripening. Enhanced germination due to puncturing and scarification was not related to removal of a restriction to water entry. The effectiveness of puncturing in overcoming dormancy depended on moisture content of the spikelets at the time of puncturing. Above 18% moisture content germination percentage was low regardless of the dormancy-releasing treatment.

Various surgical cuts were used to induce germination of dormant barnyardgrass [Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv. # ECHCG] caryopses. Greater percentages of germination were obtained when the cuts were made closer to the embryo. However, removal of only the caryopsis coat covering the coleoptile or midembryo axis induced up to 10% germination compared to 70% germination for caryopses with the coat covering the radicle removed. Dormancy of barnyardgrass was not caused by the inability of the embryo to imbibe, imposed mechanical resistance of the caryopsis coat, or presence of an inhibitor. A wounding response, other than ethylene production, by the cut caryopses was possibly responsible for stimulating germination. Similar responses to cutting observed in afterripened caryopses were consistent with the suggested hypothesis.