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.

Presenting research conducted by the ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’ project at the University of York, this article focuses on the Great Seal devised in 1649 and re-issued in 1651 to enable the Commonwealth to function following the execution of Charles i. As a familiar and ancient image of monarchy, the Great Seal posed an obvious challenge to the authority of the Rump Parliament. A radical new design, authorised by parliamentary committee and executed by engraver Thomas Simon, replaced royal iconography with images of popular sovereignty and nationhood: a map of England and Ireland on the obverse of the Seal, and the interior of the House of Commons chamber (formerly St Stephen’s Chapel) on the reverse. The result was a striking evocation of political authority located in the House of Commons and deriving from the English people. Engravings of the Commons chamber, in circulation since the 1620s, are identified as a probable source for Simon’s work. The Great Seal also re-asserted England’s dominion over Ireland and the waters surrounding the British Isles. Overall, this article argues for continuity as well as alteration in the iconography of the Great Seal of England, at a time of revolutionary political change.

Background: Health anxiety (HA), or hypochondriasis, is a psychological problem characterized by a preoccupation with the belief that one is physically unwell. A 2007 Cochrane review (Thomson and Page, 2007) found cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to be an effective intervention for individuals with HA. Similar findings were reported in a recent meta-analysis (Olatunji et al., 2014), which did not employ a systematic search strategy. The current review aimed to investigate the efficacy of CBT for HA, and to update the existing reviews. Method: A systematic search was conducted following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidance, including randomized controlled trials that compared CBT with a control condition for people with HA. Five hundred and sixty-seven studies were found in the original search, of which 14 were included in the meta-analysis. Results: Meta-analysis was conducted on 21 comparisons and a large effect size for CBT compared with a control condition was found at post therapy d = 1.01 (95% confidence interval 0.77–1.25), as well as at 6- and 12-month follow-up. Conclusions: This systematic review and meta-analysis provides support for the hypothesis that CBT is an effective intervention for HA when compared with a variety of control conditions, e.g. treatment-as-usual, waiting list, medication, and other psychological therapies.

Lactoferrin and lysozyme are antimicrobial and immunomodulatory proteins produced in high quantities in human milk that aid in gastrointestinal (GI) health and have beneficial effects when supplemented separately and in conjunction in human and animal diets. Ruminants produce low levels of lactoferrin and lysozyme; however, there are genetically engineered cattle and goats that respectively secrete recombinant human lactoferrin (rhLF-milk), and human lysozyme (hLZ-milk) in their milk. Effects of consumption of rhLF-milk, hLZ-milk and a combination of rhLF-and hLZ-milk were tested on young pigs as an animal model for the GI tract of children. Compared with control milk-fed pigs, pigs fed a combination of rhLF and hLZ (rhLF+hLZ) milk had a significantly deeper intestinal crypts and a thinner lamina propria layer. Pigs fed hLZ-milk, rhLF-milk and rhLF+hLZ had significantly reduced mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and red blood cells (RBCs) were significantly increased in pigs fed hLZ-milk and rhLF-milk and tended to be increased in rhLF+hLZ-fed pigs, indicating more mature RBCs. These results support previous research demonstrating that pigs fed milk containing rhLF or hLZ had decreased intestinal inflammation, and suggest that in some parameters the combination of lactoferrin and lysozyme have additive effects, in contrast to the synergistic effects reported when utilising in-vitro models.

In certain cases, the incidence energy of constituent atoms activates an atomistic insertion mechanism, which decreases the surface roughness of metal thin films. In an effort to probe this effect, homoepitaxial copper films were grown using a mass/energy selected direct ion deposition technique that allows precise control of the incidence energy. Surface roughness is measured using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) within the same UHV surface analysis system. The activation of the insertion mechanism near 20 eV triggers smoother crystal growth. The beneficial effects begin to be obscured by adatom/vacancy creation near 30 eV. A sophisticated Kinetic Monte Carlo/Molecular Dynamics (KMC-MD) model supports this interpretation.

The architecture of an engineered scaffold is an important consideration in the design of a synthetic tissue replacement. We have begun to explore the use of heirarchical fiber scale design ranging from microscale nonwoven to 3-D integrated fiber bundles in orthopaedic tissue engineering applications. The use of heirarchical fiber and design includes the following advantages: 1) the ability to tailor a broad spectrum of substrates with a wide range of mechanical properties, and 2) the ability to create structures capable of supporting cell proliferation as well as the micro-diffusion of nutrients throughout the structure. Using the bioresorbable copolymer, poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) [PLAGA], we have fabricated two matrices based on fiber technology: 1) a microfiber non-woven mesh composed of 50:50 PLAGA and 2) a 3-dimensional braided structure composed of 5:95 PLAGA. These structures were examined by scanning electron microscopy [SEM] in an in vitro cell culture environment. Matrices were seeded with two types of cells (osteoblasts from neonatal rat calvaria and fibroblasts from the BALB/C cell line) to determine the effect of matrix architecture on cellular morphology and proliferation. SEM analysis of the microfiber matrix indicated a highly porous, structure resulting from the random arrangement of the microfibers. PLAGA fibers appear to have a range in diameter from approximately 2-7 μm. The 3-D braided matrix was shown to have a organized fibrous structure resulting from the 3-D braiding process. Examination of the attachment and proliferation of cells on the matrices revealed that cell morphology and proliferation patterns were dependent on cell type and matrix geometry. SEM analysis also indicated that cells responded dynamically to changes in structure due to the onset of degradation.