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Excessive or aberrant generation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) has recently become implicated in the underlying aetiology of a number of human pathologies including preeclampsia, systemic lupus erythromatosus, rheumatoid arthritis, auto-antibody induced small vessel vasculitis, coagulopathies such as deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary complications. These results imply that effective pharmacological therapeutic strategies will need to be developed to counter overt NETosis in these and other inflammatory disorders. As calcium flux is implicated in the generation of reactive oxygen species and histone citrullination, two key events in NETosis, we analysed the roles of both extra- and intracellular calcium pools and their modulation by pharmacological agents in the NETotic process in detail. Interleukin-8 (IL-8) was used as a physiological stimulus of NETosis. Our data demonstrate that efficient induction of NETosis requires mobilisation of both extracellular and intracellular calcium pools. Since modulation of the calcineurin pathway by cyclosporine A has been described in neutrophils, we investigated its influence on NETosis. Our data indicate that IL-8 induced NETosis is reduced by ascomycin and cyclosporine A, antagonists of the calcineurin pathway, but not following treatment with rapamycin, which utilizes the mTOR pathway. The action of the G protein coupled receptor phospholipase C pathway appears to be essential for the induction of NETs by IL-8, as NETosis was diminished by treatment with either pertussis toxin, a G-protein inhibitor, the phospholipase C inhibitor, U73122, or staurosporine, an inhibitor of protein kinase C. The data regarding the calcineurin antagonists, ascomycin and cyclosporine A, open the possibility to therapeutically suppress or modulate NETosis. They also provide new insight into the mechanism whereby such immune suppressive drugs render transplant patients susceptible to opportunistic fungal infections.

Cross-education, a phenomenon where training one limb improves performance in the untrained limb, can be enhanced through mirror visual feedback (MVF), underpinning its potential for rehabilitating hemiparetic patients. While MVF-mediated enhancement is documented for simple motor tasks, its effectiveness in complex, fine finger movements remains underexplored. To address this gap, we developed a novel experimental setup to investigate MVF effects on cross-education for a unique typing task involving fine finger movements. The setup comprises three tightly synchronized systems: A novel typing device to implement the typing task, an IMU-based system for accurate real-time hand movement tracking, and a virtual reality (VR) system that provides normal or mirrored real-time replication of hand movements by virtual hands. Additionally, several methodologies and algorithms critical to the experimental task were developed: (1) Constructing participant-specific virtual hand models to accurately replicate thumb-to-phalanx touches. (2) An intuitive approach to manipulating quaternions for coordinate transformation and mirror animation. (3) Millisecond-level synchronization of movement and typing data. (4) Preventing false key press/release detections by filtering noise specific to the typing device. (5) Correcting reference frame misalignment between IMU sensors and their respective hand segments. Some of these methodologies contribute valuable tools to the hand biomechanics and VR research communities. Technical validation of the setup demonstrated robust real-time performance, millisecond-level data synchronization, and precise hand animation, confirming the system’s readiness for investigating MVF-based cross-education.

Suspected fractures are among the most common reasons for patients to visit emergency departments (EDs), and X-ray imaging is the primary diagnostic tool used by clinicians to assess patients for fractures. Missing a fracture in a radiograph often has severe consequences for patients, resulting in delayed treatment and poor recovery of function. Nevertheless, radiographs in emergency settings are often read out of necessity by emergency medicine clinicians who lack subspecialized expertise in orthopedics, and misdiagnosedfractures account forupwardof four of everyfivereported diagnostic errors in certain EDs. In this work, we developed a deep neural network to detect and localize fractures in radiographs. We trained it to accurately emulate the expertise of 18 senior subspecialized orthopedic surgeons by having them annotate 135,409 radiographs. We then ran a controlled experiment with emergency medicine clinicians to evaluate their ability to detect fractures in wrist radiographs with and without the assistance of the deep learning model. The average clinician’s sensitivity was 80.8% (95% CI, 76.7–84.1%) unaided and 91.5% (95% CI, 89.3–92.9%) aided, and specificity was 87.5% (95 CI, 85.3–89.5%) unaided and 93.9% (95% CI, 92.9–94.9%) aided. The average clinician experienced a relative reduction in misinterpretation rate of 47.0% (95% CI, 37.4–53.9%). The significant improvements in diagnostic accuracy that we observed in this study show that deep learning methods are a mechanism by which senior medical specialists can deliver their expertise to generalists on the front lines of medicine, thereby providing substantial improvements to patient care.

In South Asia, biomass is burned for energy and waste disposal, producing brown carbon (BrC) aerosols whose climatic impacts are highly uncertain. To assess these impacts, a real-world understanding of BrC's physio-optical properties is essential. For this region, the order-of-magnitude variability in BrC's spectral refractive index as a function of particle volatility distribution is poorly understood. This leads to oversimplified model parameterization and subsequent uncertainty in regional radiative forcing. Here we used the field-collected aerosol samples from major anthropogenic biomass activities to examine the methanol-soluble BrC optical properties. We show a strong relation between the absorption strength, wavelength dependence, and thermo-optical fractions of carbonaceous aerosols. Our observations show strongly absorbing BrC near the Himalayan foothills that may accelerate glacier melt, further highlighting the limitations of climate models where variable BrC properties are not considered. These findings provide crucial inputs for refining climate models and developing effective regional strategies to mitigate BrC emissions.

The objective of this research is to create a chain-ratio-type exponential estimator in order to estimate the finite population mean in double sampling for stratification. An estimator for population mean has been constructed based on the concept of chain-ratio estimators. The constructed estimator is compared to the standard unbiased estimator, as well as the other relevant existing estimators and conditions are shown to yield better results in terms of efficiency. To support the theoretical results the study has been done on both natural as well as simulated populations.

Topological insulators (TIs) possess exciting nonlinear optical properties due to presence of metallic surface states with the Dirac fermions and are predicted as a promising material for broadspectral phodotection ranging from UV (ultraviolet) to deep IR (infrared) or terahertz range. The recent experimental reports demonstrating nonlinear optical properties are mostly carried out on non-flexible substrates and there is a huge demand for the fabrication of high performing flexible optoelectronic devices using new exotic materials due to their potential applications in wearable devices, communications, sensors, imaging etc. Here first time we integrate the thin films of TIs (Bi 2 Te 3 ) with the flexible PET (polyethylene terephthalate) substrate and report the strong light absorption properties in these devices. Owing to small band gap material, evolving bulk and gapless surface state conduction, we observe high responsivity and detectivity at NIR (near infrared) wavelengths (39 A/W, 6.1 × 10 8 Jones for 1064 nm and 58 A/W, 6.1 × 10 8 Jones for 1550 nm). TIs based flexible devices show that photocurrent is linearly dependent on the incident laser power and applied bias voltage. Devices also show very fast response and decay times. Thus we believe that the superior optoelectronic properties reported here pave the way for making TIs based flexible optoelectronic devices.

Metric anomalies arising from a distribution of point defects (intrinsic interstitials, vacancies, point stacking faults), thermal deformation, biological growth, etc. are well known sources of material inhomogeneity and internal stress. By emphasizing the geometric nature of such anomalies we seek their representations for materially uniform crystalline elastic solids. In particular, we introduce a quasi-plastic deformation framework where the multiplicative decomposition of the total deformation gradient into an elastic and a plastic deformation is established such that the plastic deformation is further decomposed multiplicatively in terms of a deformation due to dislocations and another due to metric anomalies. We discuss our work in the context of quasi-plastic strain formulation and Weyl geometry. We also derive a general form of metric anomalies which yield a zero stress field in the absence of other inhomogeneities and any external sources of stress.

The aim of this paper is to develop more effective methods for estimating population means in sample surveys using auxiliary attributes. To achieve this goal, we introduce a modified version of the estimators proposed by Koyuncu (2013b) and Shahzad et al. (2019), as well as a new class of estimators. We derive expressions for the bias and mean squared error of these new estimators up to the first degree of approximation. Our results show that the suggested classes of estimators perform better than other existing methods, with the lowest mean squared error under optimal conditions. We also conduct an empirical investigation to support our findings.

The human hand, with many degrees of freedom, serves as an excellent tool for dexterous manipulation. Previous research has demonstrated that there exists a lower-dimensional subspace that synergistically controls the full hand kinematics. The elements of this subspace, also called synergies, have been viewed as the strategy developed by the CNS in the control of finger movements. Considering that the control of fingers is lateralized to the contralateral hemisphere, how the synergies differ for the control of the dominant and the non-dominant hand has not been widely addressed. In this paper, hand kinematics was recorded using electromagnetic tracking system sensors as participants made various postures and object grasps with their dominant hand and non-dominant hand separately. Synergies that explain 90% of variance in data of both hands were analyzed for similarity at the individual level as well as at the population level. The results showed no differences in synergies between the hands at both these levels. PC scores and cross-reconstruction errors were analyzed to further support the prevalence of similarity between the synergies of the hands. Future work is proposed, and implications of the results to the treatment and diagnosis of neuromotor disorders are discussed.

This paper is concerned with the socio-demographic differentials on effective contraceptive methods and sterilization in India with respect to 5 year age-groups, place of residence, highest level of education, wealth index, religion, caste, current marital status and occupation using the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data, 2019–21. Results reveal that the percentage of currently married men and women using effective contraceptive methods is found to be considerably larger in younger age- groups, urban areas, higher education, richest wealth index, Sikh Community, General caste, married couples and Professional/Technical/Managerial occupational group in addition to little bit variation in other contraceptive methods. The lower percentage of female sterilization with mean marital duration and mean parity is also accompanied by these groups except Sikh Community and married couples. Median age of the married women at their sterilization during end of reproductive period is ascertained to be less than 30 years in all categories.