Panic disorder, characterised by sudden episodes of intense fear or anxiety, affects 1–4% of the population. Symptoms include rapid heartbeat, chest pain and fear of dying. Panic disorder often co-occurs with substance dependence and major depression. This review article examines pharmacological treatments, focusing on antidepressants and benzodiazepines, but also considering antipsychotics and anticonvulsants. It overviews the history of antidepressants and benzodiazepines in the treatment of panic disorder and their mechanisms of action. The results of a recent Cochrane Review network meta-analysis are then presented and contrasted with six current national and international treatment guidelines. Rankings of the various drugs in terms of efficacy, tolerability and safety are summarised, along with levels of evidence and lines of recommendation as a treatment option (first-, second or third-line, or reserved for treatment-resistant cases).

Cardiometabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD), are common. Approximately one in three deaths annually are caused by CVD in Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ)(1). The Mediterranean dietary pattern is associated with a reduced risk of cardiometabolic disease in epidemiological and interventional studies(2,3). However, implementing the Mediterranean diet into non-Mediterranean populations can be challenging(4). Some of these challeanges include facilitating consumption of unfamiliar foods and the cultural and social context of food consumption. AoNZ produces a rich source of high-quality foods consistent with a Mediterranean dietary pattern. He Rourou Whai Painga is collaborative project combining contributions from food industry partners into a Mediterranean Diet pattern and providing foods, recipes and other support to whole household/whānau. The aim was to test if a New Zealand food-based Mediterranean diet (NZMedDiet) with behavioural intervention improves cardiometabolic health and wellbeing in individuals at risk. This presentation will review the background to the research, the process of forming a collaboration between researchers and the food industry, the design and implementation of a complex study design (see protocol paper)(5), with results from the initial randomised controlled trial. We conducted several pilot studies(6,7,8) to inform the final design of the research, which was a combination of two randomised controlled trials (RCT 1 and 2) and a longitudinal cohort study. RCT-1 compared 12-weeks of the NZMedDiet to usual diet in participants with increased cardiometabolic risk (metabolic syndrome severity score (MetSSS) >0.35). The intervention group were provided with food and recipes to meet 75% of their energy requirements, supported by a behavioural intervention to improve adherence. The primary outcome measure was MetSSS after 12 weeks. Two hundred individuals with mean (SD) age 49.9 (10.9)yrs with 62% women were enrolled with their household/whānau. After 12 weeks, the mean (SD) MetSSS was 1.0 (0.7) in the control (n = 98) and 0.8 (0.5) in the intervention (n = 102) group; estimated difference (95% CI) of -0.05 (-0.16 to 0.06), p=0.35. A Mediterranean diet score (PyrMDS) was greater in the intervention group 1.6 (1.1 to 2.1), p<0.001, consistent with a change to a more Mediterranean dietary pattern. Weight reduced in the NZMedDiet group compared with control (-1.9 kg (-2.0 to -0.34)), p=0.006 and wellbeing, assessed by the SF-36 quality of life questionnaire, improved across all domains p<0.001. In participants with increased cardiometabolic risk, food provision with a Mediterranean dietary pattern and a behavioural intervention did not improve a metabolic risk score but was associated with reduced weight and improved quality of life.

Approximately 15% of Australia’s workforce are shift workers, who are at greater risk for obesity and related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.(1,2,3) While current guidelines for obesity management prioritise diet-induced weight loss as a treatment option, there are limited weight-loss studies involving night shift workers and no current exploration of the factors associated with engagement in weight-loss interventions. The Shifting Weight using Intermittent Fasting in night shift workers (SWIFt) study was a randomised controlled trial that compared three, 24-week weight-loss interventions: continuous energy restriction (CER), and 500-calorie intermittent fasting (IF) for 2-days per week; either during the day (IF:2D), or the night shift (IF:2N). This current study provided a convergent, mixed methods, experimental design to: 1) explore the relationship between participant characteristics, dietary intervention group and time to drop out for the SWIFt study (quantitative); and 2) understand why some participants are more likely to drop out of the intervention (qualitative). Participant characteristics included age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, shift schedule, number of night shifts per four weeks, number of years in shift work, weight at baseline, weight change at four weeks, and quality of life at baseline. A Cox regression model was used to specify time to drop out from the intervention as the dependent variable and purposive selection was used to determine predictors for the model. Semi-structured interviews at baseline and 24-weeks were conducted and audio diaries every two weeks were collected from participants using a maximum variation sampling approach, and analysed using the five steps of framework analysis.(4) A total of 250 participants were randomised to the study between October 2019 and February 2022. Two participants were excluded from analysis due to retrospective ineligibility. Twenty-nine percent (n = 71) of participants dropped out of the study over the 24-week intervention. Greater weight at baseline, fewer years working shift work, lower weight change at four weeks, and women compared to men were associated with a significant increased rate of drop out from the study (p < 0.05). Forty-seven interviews from 33 participants were conducted and 18 participants completed audio diaries. Lack of time, fatigue and emotional eating were barriers more frequently reported by women. Participants with a higher weight at baseline more frequently reported fatigue and emotional eating barriers, and limited guidance on non-fasting days as a barrier for the IF interventions. This study provides important considerations for refining shift-worker weight-loss interventions for future implementation in order to increase engagement and mitigate the adverse health risks experienced by this essential workforce.

From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants’ preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies 1 project, and follow-up CDI data were collected from a subsample of this dataset at 18 and 24 months. A total of 341 (18 months) and 327 (24 months) infants were tested across 21 laboratories. In neither preregistered analyses with North American and UK English, nor exploratory analyses with a larger sample did we find evidence for a relation between IDS preference and later vocabulary. We discuss implications of this finding in light of recent work suggesting that IDS preference measured in the laboratory has low test-retest reliability.

We characterised the soils and vegetation in 15 sets of four quadrats on and around mounds of Macrotermes annandalei (Isoptera, Macrotermitinae) on a plain of deep dystric clay over limestone in Deciduous Dipterocarp Forest in Northern Thailand. Termites have excavated the mounds from the deep calcareous substrate. The mound soils have darker subsoils, larger contents of clays and exchangeable cations, and higher pH values than the surrounding dystric clay loams. The thickets on the mounds are visually different from the surrounding Deciduous Dipterocarp Forest. They have few dipterocarps and are floristically similar to the regionally important Mixed Deciduous Forest. The clear visual differences are confirmed by floristic similarity, cluster, and canonical correspondence analyses for each of the tree, sapling and seedling size classes. The differences between the mound clays and surrounding red clay loams and the associations between soil and forest types are confirmed by ‘t tests’ and the significant correlations of the soil base status with the main floristic axis of the canonical correspondence analyses. Soil variability due to termites and other agents of pedoturbation can significantly contribute to short-range floristic and structural diversity in some dry tropical forests.

Different fertilization strategies can be adopted to optimize the productive components of an integrated crop–livestock systems. The current research evaluated how the application of P and K to soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) or Urochloa brizantha (Hochst. ex A. Rich.) R. D. Webster cv. BRS Piatã associated with nitrogen or without nitrogen in the pasture phase affects the accumulation and chemical composition of forage and animal productivity. The treatments were distributed in randomized blocks with three replications. Four fertilization strategies were tested: (1) conventional fertilization with P and K in the crop phase (CF–N); (2) conventional fertilization with nitrogen in the pasture phase (CF + N); (3) system fertilization with P and K in the pasture phase (SF–N); (4) system fertilization with nitrogen in the pasture phase (SF + N). System fertilization increased forage accumulation from 15 710 to 20 920 kg DM ha/year compared to conventional without nitrogen. Stocking rate (3.1 vs. 2.8 AU/ha; SEM = 0.12) and gain per area (458 vs. 413 kg BW/ha; SEM = 27.9) were higher in the SF–N than CF–N, although the average daily gain was lower (0.754 vs. 0.792 kg LW/day; SEM = 0.071). N application in the pasture phase, both, conventional and system fertilization resulted in higher crude protein, stocking rate and gain per area. Applying nitrogen and relocate P and K from crop to pasture phase increase animal productivity and improve forage chemical composition in integrated crop–livestock system.

In this work, we present a methodology and a corresponding code-base for constructing mock integral field spectrograph (IFS) observations of simulated galaxies in a consistent and reproducible way. Such methods are necessary to improve the collaboration and comparison of observation and theory results, and accelerate our understanding of how the kinematics of galaxies evolve over time. This code, SimSpin, is an open-source package written in R, but also with an API interface such that the code can be interacted with in any coding language. Documentation and individual examples can be found at the open-source website connected to the online repository. SimSpin is already being utilised by international IFS collaborations, including SAMI and MAGPI, for generating comparable data sets from a diverse suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.

Background: The Neuromuscular Disease Network for Canada (NMD4C) aims to improve the care of Canadians with neuromuscular diseases. It has identified a need to support clinicians in implementing clinical guidelines with the use of checklists for initial evaluation and clinical follow-ups. The objective of the study was to develop a pragmatic management checklist to support clinical guidelines for diagnosis and follow-up of myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1). Methods: A practice-based DM1 checklist will be reviewed by a panel of 35 experts using an online survey. The survey has been drafted using the Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation tool for assessing Recommendation Excellence (AGREE-REX). The experts will rate: (1) the quality of each checklist recommendation, and (2) the applicability of each recommendation based on their clinical setting. Scores will be compiled and discussed among experts to achieve consensus. Results: The compiled checklist items were organized into three sections: (1) initial evaluation, (2) follow-up visit and (3) general treatment recommendations. Feedback from experts across Canada, results on feasibility, and a finalized checklist will be presented. Conclusions: The development of a feasible treatment checklist is a useful KT tool that DM1 experts across Canada could apply in their own clinical settings.

We provide an overview of diagnostic stewardship with key concepts that include the diagnostic pathway and the multiple points where interventions can be implemented, strategies for interventions, the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration, and key microbiologic diagnostic tests that should be considered for diagnostic stewardship. The document focuses on microbiologic laboratory testing for adult and pediatric patients and is intended for a target audience of healthcare workers involved in diagnostic stewardship interventions and all workers affected by any step of the diagnostic pathway (ie, ordering, collecting, processing, reporting, and interpreting results of a diagnostic test). This document was developed by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Diagnostic Stewardship Taskforce.

Consumers now demand evidence of welfare assurance at all stages of animal production, marketing, transport and slaughter. In response, retailers have increasingly adopted preferred supply chain relationships which preclude sourcing animals via livestock auction markets. One of the criteria dictating this action is a perceived improvement in animal welfare resulting from direct transport from farm to abattoir.

A survey of complete journey structures of 18 393 slaughterweight lambs from farm to abattoir was conducted between April and July 1997. Journeys were characterized in terms of distances travelled, duration and the number of discrete components within a whole journey which comprised: transport; trans-shipping (when animals were transferred from one vehicle to another); multiple pickups from a number of farms; and holding at either assembly points, lairages or auction markets. The results identified that journeys in the livestock distribution system are diverse and range in complexity, irrespective of marketing channel. Journey complexity was found to be positively related to distance travelled.

The study demonstrates that discussions concerning welfare of livestock in transit should consider the journey structure and not just the marketing channel per se. Furthermore, it also shows that changes taking place in the infrastructure of the marketing and meat processing sectors may result in a reduction in animal welfare.

The preferences of broiler and layer strains of fowl for four different intensities of incandescent luminaire (6, 20, 60 and 200 lux; Osram, 60W, pearl) were tested at 2 and 6 weeks of age. With each strain, four replicates of 12 birds were each allowed to move freely between four compartments illuminated continuously at the different intensities for 6 days. The distribution of light intensities among the compartments was changed daily. After 2 days of conditioning, the birds’ location and behaviour were recorded once every 15min over 23h on each of the remaining 4 days. The other hour was devoted to changing light intensities and refilling the feeders and drinkers. Six, mutually exclusive behaviours were defined: resting, perching, feeding, drinking, litter-directed activity and locomotion.

With both strains, most time was spent in the brightest (200 lux) environment at 2 weeks of age. but in the dimmest (6 lux) at 6 weeks. This apparent change in preference was associated only with the two behaviours which took up most time, resting and perching, whereas the highest intensity was consistently preferred for all other behaviours. Older birds thus preferred to be in dim light when they were relatively inactive.

The finding that older birds prefer to spend much of their time in a light environment of < 10 lux intensity, depending on behaviour, is contrary to current recommendations that minimum light intensities for broilers and laying hens should be increased to as much as 20 lux. Some variation in the spatial or temporal distribution of ambient light intensity, to provide both dimly (< 10 lux) and brightly (eg > 50 lux) lit environments, might benefit the welfare of older poultry, although further work is needed to establish their optimal light environment.

As part of surveillance of snail-borne trematodiasis in Knowsley Safari (KS), Prescot, United Kingdom, a collection was made in July 2021 of various planorbid (n = 173) and lymnaeid (n = 218) snails. These were taken from 15 purposely selected freshwater habitats. In the laboratory emergent trematode cercariae, often from single snails, were identified by morphology with a sub-set, of those most accessible, later characterized by cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) DNA barcoding. Two schistosomatid cercariae were of special note in the context of human cercarial dermatitis (HCD), Bilharziella polonica emergent from Planorbarius corneus and Trichobilharzia spp. emergent from Ampullacaena balthica. The former schistosomatid was last reported in the United Kingdom over 50 years ago. From cox1 analyses, the latter likely consisted of two taxa, Trichobilharzia anseri, a first report in the United Kingdom, and a hitherto unnamed genetic lineage having some affiliation with Trichobilharzia longicauda. The chronobiology of emergent cercariae from P. corneus was assessed, with the vertical swimming rate of B. polonica measured. We provide a brief risk appraisal of HCD for public activities typically undertaken within KS educational and recreational programmes.