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.

The population of long-term survivors with CHDs is increasing due to better diagnostics and treatment. This has revealed many co-morbidities including different neurocognitive difficulties. However, the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among children and adolescents and the specific types of disorders they may experience are unclear. We systematically reviewed the existing literature, where psychiatric diagnoses or psychiatric symptoms were investigated in children and adolescents (age: 2–18 aged) with CHDs and compared them with a heart-healthy control group or normative data. The searches were done in the three databases PubMed, psychINFO, and Embase. We included 20 articles reporting on 8035 unique patients with CHDs. Fourteen articles repoted on psychological symptoms, four reported on psychiatric diagnoses, and two reported on both symptoms and diagnoses. We found that children and adolescents with a CHD had a higher prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ranging between 1.4 and 9 times higher) and autism (ranging between 1.8 and 5 times higher) than controls, but inconsistent results regarding depression and anxiety.

Many Aboriginal Australian communities are undergoing language shift from traditional Indigenous languages to contact varieties such as Kriol, an English-lexified Creole. Kriol is reportedly characterised by lexical items with highly variable phonological specifications, and variable implementation of voicing and manner contrasts in obstruents (Sandefur, 1986). A language, such as Kriol, characterised by this unusual degree of variability presents Kriol-acquiring children with a potentially difficult language-learning task, and one which challenges the prevalent theories of acquisition. To examine stop consonant acquisition in this unusual language environment, we present a study of Kriol stop and affricate production, followed by a mispronunciation detection study, with Kriol-speaking children (ages 4-7) from a Northern Territory community where Kriol is the lingua franca. In contrast to previous claims, the results suggest that Kriol-speaking children acquire a stable phonology and lexemes with canonical phonemic specifications, and that English experience would not appear to induce this stability.

The White River Badlands (WRB) of South Dakota record eolian activity spanning the late Pleistocene through the latest Holocene (21 ka to modern), reflecting the effects of the last glacial period and Holocene climate fluctuations (Holocene Thermal Maximum, Medieval Climate Anomaly, and Little Ice Age). The WRB dune fields are important paleoclimate indicators in an area of the Great Plains with few climate proxies. The goal of this study is to use 1 m/pixel-resolution digital elevation models from drone imagery to distinguish Early to Middle Holocene parabolic dunes from Late Holocene parabolic dunes. Results indicate that relative ages of dunes are distinguished by slope and roughness (terrain ruggedness index). Morphological differences are attributed to postdepositional wind erosion, soil formation, and mass wasting. Early to Middle Holocene and Late Holocene paleowind directions, 324°± 13.1° (N = 7) and 323° ± 3.0° (N = 19), respectively, are similar to the modern wind regime. Results suggest significant landscape resilience to wind erosion, which resulted in preservation of a mosaic of Early and Late Holocene parabolic dunes. Quantification of dune characteristics will help refine the chronology of eolian activity in the WRB, provide insight into drought-driven landscape evolution, and integrate WRB eolian activity in a regional paleoenvironmental context.

Of the wildlife casualties admitted to rehabilitation centres in England, less than half are subsequently released back into the wild. If the factors associated with survival within rehabilitation centres can be determined, they may be used to focus efforts on individuals with high chances of successful recovery, and thus improve welfare by devoting resources to those animals that are more likely to benefit. We analysed the medical record cards of eight species admitted to four wildlife rehabilitation centres run by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals between 2000-2004 to determine those factors that affected the chance of survival in care until release, and whether trends in predictive factors occurred across taxonomic groups. We found that the most important predictive factor, across all species, was the severity of the symptoms of injury or illness. Factors commonly used as important indicators of rehabilitation success in published practice guidelines, such as mass and age, were not found to affect survival significantly. Our results highlight the importance of triage based on clinical diagnosis as soon as a wildlife casualty is admitted, and indicate that although the ethos of many rehabilitation centres is to attempt the treatment of all wildlife casualties, the attempted treatment of those with severe injuries may be adversely affecting welfare by prolonging suffering.

In the event of a notifiable disease outbreak, poultry may need to be culled in situ. This should be performed swiftly and humanely to prevent further spread of the pathogen while preserving the welfare of the animals prior to death. Here, we examined the aversion of broiler chicks (Gallus domesticus) to three lethal gas mixtures at various concentrations to determine the least aversive mix that could be used in whole-house gassing. For 1 h, individual chicks (n = 36) were allowed to place their heads inside three feeding and drinking stations (FDS) in order to access food and water. Each FDS was filled with a different gas mixture, and birds could access each FDS as much as they liked. Twelve chicks each were tested at low (50% carbon dioxide [CO2] in air, 70% argon [Ar] in CO2, 70% nitrogen [N2] in CO2), medium (55% CO2 in air, 80% Ar in CO2, 80% N2 in CO2) or high (60% CO2 in air, 90% Ar in CO2, 90% N2 in CO2) concentrations of gas mixtures. Aversion was assessed based on the time birds spent with head in each FDS (with more time indicating less aversive), and the frequency of head shakes relative to time spent with head in the FDS (with a lower proportion indicating less aversive). Data were analysed by ANOVA. On average, birds spent < 3 min with their head in any FDS. Mixtures containing 90% Ar or N2 in CO2 and 80% argon in CO2 were least aversive and mixtures containing 70% N2 in CO2 and 60% CO2 in air were most aversive, based on time spent with head in. Head shakes s−1 were more frequent with low concentration gas mixtures compared to high concentrations, and with all CO2 in air mixtures, which suggests that the intensity of head shaking is related to the concentrations of CO2. From these results, one concentration of each of the three gas mixtures (90% N2 in CO2, 80% Ar in CO2, and 50% CO2 in air) were chosen for assessment on a further 12 birds and the results showed that both inert gas mixtures were less aversive than 50% CO2 in air based on time spent with head in. Frequency of head shakes s−1 did not differ between the three mixtures. Birds found all gases aversive, however it is concluded that inert gas in CO2 mixtures were least aversive compared to CO2 in air and these gases also caused less signs of respiratory discomfort.

Little has been published on the demographic composition of the clinical and translational science research workforce within the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program despite the well-documented need for greater diversity in the biomedical research workforce. Analyses of workforce demographic reveal that women and members of underrepresented groups remain persistently underrepresented in the CTSA hub and training components principal investigators. In contrast, in the CTSA Program career development and training programs, females have greater representation as participants, and non-Whites were better represented in training programs.

Shallow firn cores, in addition to a near-basal ice core, were recovered in 2018 from the Quelccaya ice cap (5470 m a.s.l) in the Cordillera Vilcanota, Peru, and in 2017 from the Nevado Illimani glacier (6350 m a.s.l) in the Cordillera Real, Bolivia. The two sites are ~450 km apart. Despite meltwater percolation resulting from warming, particle-based trace element records (e.g. Fe, Mg, K) in the Quelccaya and Illimani shallow cores retain well-preserved signals. The firn core chronologies, established independently by annual layer counting, show a convincing overlap indicating the two records contain comparable signals and therefore capture similar regional scale climatology. Trace element records at a ~1–4 cm resolution provide past records of anthropogenic emissions, dust sources, volcanic emissions, evaporite salts and marine-sourced air masses. Using novel ultra-high-resolution (120 μm) laser technology, we identify annual layer thicknesses ranging from 0.3 to 0.8 cm in a section of 2000-year-old radiocarbon-dated near-basal ice which compared to the previous annual layer estimates suggests that Quelccaya ice cores drilled to bedrock may be older than previously suggested by depth-age models. With the information collected from this study in combination with past studies, we emphasize the importance of collecting new surface-to-bedrock ice cores from at least the Quelccaya ice cap, in particular, due to its projected disappearance as soon as the 2050s.

The western Antarctic Peninsula harbours a diverse benthic marine community where dense canopies of macroalgae can dominate the shallow subtidal zone (0–40 m or greater). In the lower portion of this range (below 25–35 m depending on topography), invertebrates such as sponges and echinoderms can be found in greater abundance due to reduced competition for space from the algal species. Dendrilla antarctica (previously Dendrilla membranosa) is a common demosponge that thrives in both communities and is known for producing diterpene secondary metabolites as a defence against sympatric sea star and amphipod predators. Omnivorous mesograzers such as amphipods inhabit both communities; however, they are in greatest abundance within the macroalgal canopy. Due to the differences between habitats, it was hypothesized that specific amphipod species not susceptible to the defensive metabolites of D. antarctica would take refuge from predators in the chemically defended sponge. Analysis of the metabolome and amphipod communities from sponges in both habitats found correlations of metabolic profile to both abundance and habitat. These studies serve to inform our understanding of the complex ecosystem of the Antarctic benthos that stands to be dramatically altered by the rapidly changing climate in the years to come.

Initial assessments of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) preparedness revealed resource shortages and variations in infection prevention policies across US hospitals. Our follow-up survey revealed improvement in resource availability, increase in testing capacity, and uniformity in infection prevention policies. Most importantly, the survey highlighted an increase in staffing shortages and use of travel nursing.

New Zealand has a strategy of eliminating SARS-CoV-2 that has resulted in a low incidence of reported coronavirus-19 disease (COVID-19). The aim of this study was to describe the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in New Zealand via a nationwide serosurvey of blood donors. Samples (n = 9806) were collected over a month-long period (3 December 2020–6 January 2021) from donors aged 16–88 years. The sample population was geographically spread, covering 16 of 20 district health board regions. A series of Spike-based immunoassays were utilised, and the serological testing algorithm was optimised for specificity given New Zealand is a low prevalence setting. Eighteen samples were seropositive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, six of which were retrospectively matched to previously confirmed COVID-19 cases. A further four were from donors that travelled to settings with a high risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure, suggesting likely infection outside New Zealand. The remaining eight seropositive samples were from seven different district health regions for a true seroprevalence estimate, adjusted for test sensitivity and specificity, of 0.103% (95% confidence interval, 0.09–0.12%). The very low seroprevalence is consistent with limited undetected community transmission and provides robust, serological evidence to support New Zealand's successful elimination strategy for COVID-19.