Manipulations

The non-ionizing and penetrative characteristics of terahertz (THz) radiation have recently led to its adoption across a variety of applications. To effectively utilize THz radiation, modulators with precise control are imperative. While most recent THz modulators manipulate the amplitude, frequency, or phase of incident THz radiation, considerably less progress has been made toward THz polarization modulation. Conventional methods for polarization control suffer from high driving voltages, restricted modulation depth, and narrow band capabilities, which hinder device performance and broader applications...

BACKGROUND: The manipulation of compliant objects by robotic systems remains a challenging task, largely due to their variable shapes and the complex, high-dimensional nature of their interaction dynamics. Traditional robotic manipulation strategies struggle with the accurate modeling and control necessary to handle such materials, especially in the presence of visual occlusions that frequently occur in dynamic environments. Meanwhile, for most unstructured environments, robots are required to have autonomous interactions with their surroundings...

BACKGROUND: Iron is crucial for growth and development, but excess iron is harmful. Neonatal mice have elevated levels of circulating iron, but the source of this iron is unclear. This lack of understanding makes it difficult to optimize early life iron balance. OBJECTIVE: Identify the origins of neonatal tissue-specific iron pools using dietary manipulation and cross-fostering murine models. METHODS: To determine whether tissue-specific neonatal iron was primarily acquired during gestation or after birth, pups born to iron sufficient or iron deficient dams were cross-fostered and tissues were harvested at postnatal day 3-5 (P3-5) to measure iron content...

BACKGROUND: Stiffness following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is often treated with manipulation under anesthesia (MUA). However, there is debate regarding the timing of MUA, with many recommending against MUA beyond three months after TKA. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review was to evaluate the functional and clinical outcomes of early versus delayed manipulation under anesthesia (MUA) for stiffness following total knee arthroplasty (TKA). METHODS: A search following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines was performed in the PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Cochrane databases in November 2023...

INTRODUCTION: Postoperative use of oral prednisone to augment the effect of multimodal pain regimens after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has increased in popularity. However, data on the risks of its utilization, especially as it relates to infection, has been lacking. We tested the null hypothesis that perioperative prednisone use is not associated with the incidence of surgical and medical complications after TKA. METHODS: Using a national administrative claims database, we identified 949,555 patients undergoing primary TKA...

The Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) is totally manmade, strongly influenced by anthropogenic activity, and lies on the upper reaches of Yangtze River. The periodic storage and discharge of water from the Three Gorges Dam could have altered the original air-plant/soil interactions of contaminants in TGR. Herein, paired atmospheric gas-particle, air-plant, and air-soil samples were collected to investigate the air-plant interaction and air-soil exchange of 16 USEPA priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disorder of the central nervous system. Recent research has revealed that mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles (MSC-EVs), containing specific miRNAs, possess immunomodulatory properties and have demonstrated therapeutic potential in the treatment of MS. This study aimed to investigate the role MSC-EVs, containing microRNA-181a-5p (miR-181a-5p) in both experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an established animal model of MS, and lipopolysaccharide-stimulated BV2 microglia...

Two event-related potential (ERP) components are commonly observed in recognition memory tasks: the Frontal Negativity (FN400) and the Late Positive Component (LPC). These components are widely interpreted as neural correlates of familiarity and recollection, respectively. However, the interpretation of LPC effects is complicated by inconsistent results regarding the timing of ERP amplitude differences. There are also mixed findings regarding how LPC amplitudes covary with decision confidence. Critically, LPC effects have almost always been measured using fixed time windows relative to memory probe stimulus onset, yet it has not been determined whether LPC effects are time locked to the stimulus or the recognition memory decision...

Intercellular communication can be mediated by direct cell-to-cell contact and indirect interactions through secretion of soluble chemokines, cytokines, and growth factors. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as important mediators of cell-to-cell and cell-to-environment communications. EVs from tumor cells, immune cells, and stromal cells can remodel the tumor microenvironment and promote cancer cell survival, proliferation, metastasis, immune evasion, and therapeutic resistance. Most importantly, EVs as natural nanoparticles can be manipulated to serve as a potent delivery system for targeted cancer therapy...

SUMMARY: The increasing development of sequence-based machine learning models has raised the demand for manipulating sequences for this application. However, existing approaches to edit and evaluate genome sequences using models have limitations, such as incompatibility with structural variants, challenges in identifying responsible sequence perturbations, and the need for vcf file inputs and phased data. To address these bottlenecks, we present Sequence Mutator for Predictive Models (SuPreMo), a scalable and comprehensive tool for performing and supporting in silico mutagenesis experiments...

This study presents a novel framework that integrates the universal jamming gripper (UG) with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enable automated grasping with no human operator in the loop. Grounded in the principles of granular jamming, the UG exhibits remarkable adaptability and proficiency, navigating the complexities of soft aerial grasping with enhanced robustness and versatility. Central to this integration is a uniquely formulated constrained trajectory optimization using model predictive control, coupled with a robust force control strategy, increasing the level of automation and operational reliability in aerial grasping...

Olfaction feedback systems could be utilized to stimulate human emotion, increase alertness, provide clinical therapy, and establish immersive virtual environments. Currently, the reported olfaction feedback technologies still face a host of formidable challenges, including human perceivable delay in odor manipulation, unwieldy dimensions, and limited number of odor supplies. Herein, we report a general strategy to solve these problems, which associates with a wearable, high-performance olfactory interface based on miniaturized odor generators (OGs) with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms...

Working memory (WM) is the ability to maintain and manipulate information 'in mind'. The neural codes underlying WM have been a matter of debate. We simultaneously recorded the activity of hundreds of neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex of male macaque monkeys during a visuospatial WM task that required navigation in a virtual 3D environment. Here, we demonstrate distinct neuronal activation sequences (NASs) that encode remembered target locations in the virtual environment. This NAS code outperformed the persistent firing code for remembered locations during the virtual reality task, but not during a classical WM task using stationary stimuli and constraining eye movements...

Polaritons are well-established carriers of light, electrical signals, and even heat at the nanoscale in the setting of on-chip devices. However, the goal of achieving practical polaritonic manipulation over small distances deeply below the light diffraction limit remains elusive. Here, we implement nanoscale polaritonic in-plane steering and cloaking in a low-loss atomically layered van der Waals (vdW) insulator, α-MoO3 , comprising building blocks of customizable stacked and assembled structures. Each block contributes specific characteristics that allow us to steer polaritons along the desired trajectories...

Hematological malignancies (HMs) encompass a diverse group of blood neoplasms with significant morbidity and mortality. Immunotherapy has emerged as a validated and crucial treatment modality for patients with HMs. Despite notable advancements having been made in understanding and implementing immunotherapy for HMs over the past decade, several challenges persist. These challenges include immune-related adverse effects, the precise biodistribution and elimination of therapeutic antigens in vivo, immune tolerance of tumors, and immune evasion by tumor cells within the tumor microenvironment (TME)...

In an industry known for its workplace hazards, such as the management and manipulation of animals that could bite, kick or cause considerable damage simply because of their size, combined with long working hours, lifting of heavy loads and the general mental stress, it is perhaps surprising that the veterinary industry is not also known for its safety culture and structures. One would expect that where such hazards and risks have been identified, there would be many and varied levels of education on risk and hazard management, a comprehensive set of tools with which to mitigate these risks as well as discussion and debriefing of significant adverse events to ensure they do not occur again...

Throughout the educational system, students experiencing active learning pedagogy perform better and fail less than those taught through direct instruction. Can this be ascribed to differences in learning from a neuroscientific perspective? This review examines mechanistic, neuroscientific evidence that might explain differences in cognitive engagement contributing to learning outcomes between these instructional approaches. In classrooms, direct instruction comprehensively describes academic content, while active learning provides structured opportunities for learners to explore, apply, and manipulate content...

Phytoplankton community composition in tributaries differs from that in their receiving waters, due to light limitation from suspended particles and other factors such as nutrient availability and temperature. This study was designed to manipulate light levels in early, mid, and late summer to determine the combined effects of light attenuation and naturally varying nutrient availability on phytoplankton community composition in an agriculturally-influenced tributary of the lower Great Lakes. In all trials, in situ microcosm experiments show that phytoplankton abundance increased under three light attenuation treatments (60 %, 75 %, and 85 % attenuation) relative to time-zero, but higher light attenuation reduced total phytoplankton abundance relative to controls...

We find that people implicitly and explicitly represent healthy foods they categorize as healthy in their purest, least prepared forms but represent foods they categorize as unhealthy in their most prepared forms (e.g., a veggie patty is represented as frozen while a beef burger is represented in a bun with melted cheese and ready to eat). We find this effect across several studies using both image and word sorting measures in explicit tasks and implicit association tasks. The effect results from the perception of health and taste as two conflicting goals...

INTRODUCTION: Previous literature suggests that sphingolipids may impact systemic coagulation and platelet aggregation, thus modulating the risks of thrombotic events. The goal of this investigation was to evaluate the role of serum sphingolipids on intrinsic platelet function to assess whether pharmacologic manipulation of sphingolipid metabolites would impact platelet aggregability. METHODS: C57BL/6J mice were injected with either normal saline, 1 mg/kg FTY720 (synthetic sphingosine-1-phosphate [S1P] receptor analog), or 5 mg/kg SLM6031434 (sphingosine kinase two inhibitor)...