Accurate birth weight prediction from fetal biometry using the Gompertz model.

Objectives: Monitoring of fetal growth and estimation of birth weight is of clinical importance. During pregnancy, ultrasound fetal biometry values including femur length, head circumference, abdominal circumference, biparietal diameter are measured and used to place fetuses on "growth charts". There is no simple growth-model-based, predictive formula in use for fetal biometry.

Erratum to "Case Series of Triathletes with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy Presenting with Swimming-Induced Pulmonary Edema".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1155/2022/3602505.].

Seasonal variations in social contact patterns in a rural population in north India: Implications for pandemic control.

Social contact mixing patterns are critical to model the transmission of communicable diseases, and have been employed to model disease outbreaks including COVID-19. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of studies on contact mixing in low and middle-income countries such as India. Furthermore, mathematical models of disease outbreaks do not account for the temporal nature of social contacts.

Transport of synaptic vesicles is modulated by vesicular reversals and stationary cargo clusters.

Stationary clusters of vesicles are a prominent feature of axonal transport, but little is known about their physiological and functional relevance to axonal transport. Here, we investigated the role of vesicle motility characteristics in modulating the formation and lifetimes of such stationary clusters, and their effect on cargo flow. We developed a simulation model describing key features of axonal cargo transport, benchmarking the model against experiments in the posterior lateral mechanosensory neurons of Caenorhabditis elegans.

The interplay of active and passive mechanisms in slow axonal transport.

A combination of intermittent active movement of transient aggregates and a paused state that intervenes between periods of active transport has been proposed to underlie the slow, directed transport of soluble proteins in axons. A component of passive diffusion in the axoplasm may also contribute to slow axonal transport, although quantitative estimates of the relative contributions of diffusive and active movement in the slow transport of a soluble protein, and in particular how they might vary across developmental stages, are lacking. Here, we propose and study a model for slow axonal transport, addressing data from bleach recovery measurements on a small, soluble, protein, choline acetyltransferase, in thin axons of the lateral chordotonal (lch5) sensory neurons of Drosophila.

Case Series of Triathletes with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy Presenting with Swimming-Induced Pulmonary Edema.

Objectives: To report three cases of triathletes who presented with swimming-induced pulmonary edema (SIPE) following water immersion. They were subsequently diagnosed with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM).

Design: Retrospective case series.

Modelling the first wave of COVID-19 in India.

Estimating the burden of COVID-19 in India is difficult because the extent to which cases and deaths have been undercounted is hard to assess. Here, we use a 9-component, age-stratified, contact-structured epidemiological compartmental model, which we call the INDSCI-SIM model, to analyse the first wave of COVID-19 spread in India. We use INDSCI-SIM, together with Bayesian methods, to obtain optimal fits to daily reported cases and deaths across the span of the first wave of the Indian pandemic, over the period Jan 30, 2020 to Feb 15, 2021.

Effect of hybrid immunity, school reopening, and the Omicron variant on the trajectory of the COVID-19 epidemic in India: a modelling study.

Background: The course of the COVID-19 pandemic has been driven by several dynamic behavioral, immunological, and viral factors. We used mathematical modeling to explore how the concurrent reopening of schools, increasing levels of hybrid immunity, and the emergence of the Omicron variant affected the trajectory of the pandemic in India, using Andhra Pradesh (pop: 53 million) as an exemplar Indian state.

Methods: We constructed an age- and contact-structured compartmental model that allows for individuals to proceed through various states depending on whether they have received zero, one, or two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Exploring the thermal limits of malaria transmission in the western Himalaya.

Environmental temperature is a key driver of malaria transmission dynamics. Using detailed temperature records from four sites: low elevation (1800), mid elevation (2200 m), and high elevation (2600-3200 m) in the western Himalaya, we model how temperature regulates parasite development rate (the inverse of the extrinsic incubation period, EIP) in the wild. Using a Briére parametrization of the EIP, combined with Bayesian parameter inference, we study the thermal limits of transmission for avian () and human parasites ( and ) as well as for two malaria-like avian parasites, and .

Cell adhesion strength and tractions are mechano-diagnostic features of cellular invasiveness.

The adhesion of cells to substrates occurs integrin clustering and binding to the actin cytoskeleton. Oncogenes modify anchorage-dependent mechanisms in cells during cancer progression. Fluid shear devices provide a label-free way to characterize cell-substrate interactions and heterogeneities in cell populations.

Phototaxis in Cyanobacteria: From Mutants to Models of Collective Behavior.

Cyanobacteria rely on photosynthesis, and thus have evolved complex responses to light. These include phototaxis, the ability of cells to sense light direction and move towards or away from it. Analysis of mutants has demonstrated that phototaxis requires the coordination of multiple photoreceptors and signal transduction networks.

Optimizing testing for COVID-19 in India.

COVID-19 testing across India uses a mix of two types of tests. Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) are relatively inexpensive point-of-care lateral-flow-assay tests, but they are also less sensitive. The reverse-transcriptase polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) test has close to 100% sensitivity and specificity in a laboratory setting, but delays in returning results, as well as increased costs relative to RATs, may vitiate this advantage.

COVID-19 Pandemic in India: Through the Lens of Modeling.

We reflect on and review India's COVID-19 pandemic response through the lens of modeling and data. The lessons learned from the Indian context may be beneficial for other countries.

Comparing COVID-19 vaccine allocation strategies in India: A mathematical modelling study.

Background: The development and widespread use of an effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine could prevent substantial morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19 and mitigate the secondary effects associated with non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Methods: We used an age-structured, expanded SEIR model with social contact matrices to assess age-specific vaccine allocation strategies in India. We used state-specific age structures and disease transmission coefficients estimated from confirmed incident cases of COVID-19 between 1 July and 31 August 2020.

Altered kinetics of circulating progenitor cells in cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) associated vasoplegic patients: A pilot study.

Vasoplegia observed post cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with substantial morbidity, multiple organ failure and mortality. Circulating counts of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) are potential markers of neo-vascularization and vascular repair. However, the significance of changes in the circulating levels of these progenitors in perioperative CPB, and their association with post-CPB vasoplegia, are currently unexplored.

Epiploic Appendagitis Masquerading as Acute Appendicitis: A Report of Two Cases.

Epiploic appendagitis (EA) is a rare clinical entity caused by an inflammatory/ischemic process involving the serosal outpouchings of the colon. Its clinical presentation of acute, localised, lower abdominal pain often mimics more common conditions like diverticulitis or appendicitis. The diagnosis of EA is challenging due to the lack of pathognomic clinical features.

Chromatin as an active polymeric material.

The patterns of the large-scale spatial organization of chromatin in interphase human somatic cells are not random. Such patterns include the radial separation of euchromatin and heterochromatin, the territorial organization of individual chromosomes, the non-random locations of chromosome territories and the differential positioning of the two X chromosomes in female cells. These features of large-scale nuclear architecture follow naturally from the hypothesis that ATP-consuming non-equilibrium processes associated with highly transcribed regions of chromosomes are a source of 'active' forces.

Baseball pitching biomechanics in relation to pain, injury, and surgery: A systematic review.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between baseball pitching biomechanics and pain, injury, or surgery, in pitchers of all ages and competition levels.

Design: Systematic review.

Methods: This study was registered on Prospero (CRD42019137462).

Information integration and collective motility in phototactic cyanobacteria.

Cells in microbial colonies integrate information across multiple spatial and temporal scales while sensing environmental cues. A number of photosynthetic cyanobacteria respond in a directional manner to incident light, resulting in the phototaxis of individual cells. Colonies of such bacteria exhibit large-scale changes in morphology, arising from cell-cell interactions, during phototaxis.

Disorder-induced enhancement of local hexatic correlations in two-dimensional fluids.

Quenched disorder affects translational and orientational correlations in two-dimensional interacting particle systems. Such disorder always suppresses orientational order in crystalline states. Surprisingly, in fluid phases of particles interacting with a power-law repulsive interaction, increasing the strength of a quenched Gaussian random pinning potential appears to enhance hexatic order locally.

Confined crowded polymers near attractive surfaces.

We present results from molecular dynamics simulations of a spherically confined neutral polymer in the presence of crowding particles, studying polymer shapes and conformations as a function of the strength of the attraction to the confining wall, solvent quality, and the density of crowders. The conformations of the polymer under good solvent conditions are weakly dependent on crowder particle density, even when the polymer is strongly confined. In contrast, under poor solvent conditions, when the polymer assumes a collapsed conformation when unconfined, it can exhibit transitions to two different adsorbed phases, when either the interaction with the wall or the density of crowder particles is changed.

Nonequilibrium Biophysical Processes Influence the Large-Scale Architecture of the Cell Nucleus.

Model approaches to nuclear architecture have traditionally ignored the biophysical consequences of ATP-fueled active processes acting on chromatin. However, transcription-coupled activity is a source of stochastic forces that are substantially larger than the Brownian forces present at physiological temperatures. Here, we describe an approach to large-scale nuclear architecture in metazoans that incorporates cell-type-specific active processes.

Biophysics of Cell-Substrate Interactions Under Shear.

Cells adhere to substrates through mechanosensitive focal adhesion complexes. Measurements that probe how cells detach from substrates when they experience an applied force connect molecular-scale aspects of cell adhesion with the biophysical properties of adherent cells. Such forces can be applied through shear devices that flow fluid in a controlled manner across cells.