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Recognizing the limitations of standard vision assessments in capturing the real-world capabilities of individuals with low vision, we investigated the potential of the Seguin Form Board Test (SFBT), a widely-used intelligence assessment employing a visuo-haptic shape-fitting task, as an estimator of vision's practical utility. We present findings from 23 children from India, who underwent treatment for congenital bilateral dense cataracts, and 21 control participants. To assess the development of functional visual ability, we conducted the SFBT and the standard measure of visual acuity, before and longitudinally after treatment. We observed a dissociation in the development of shape-fitting and visual acuity. Improvements of patients' shape-fitting preceded enhancements in their visual acuity after surgery and emerged even with acuity worse than that of control participants. Our findings highlight the importance of incorporating multi-modal and cognitive aspects into evaluations of visual proficiency in low-vision conditions, to better reflect vision's impact on daily activities.

World is facing lot of health issues due to industrial wastewater pollution. Increasing population and industrialization are one of the main causes of water pollution. In general, industrial wastewater contains suspended, colloidal and dissolved impurities. Industrial effluent may be either excessively acidic or alkaline and may contain high concentration of coloured matter. In this study, coagulationflocculation method has been used for minimization of contaminants from sugar industry effluent. Lime has been used in conjunction with poly diallyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (PDADMAC) for reduction of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS) and turbidity. It could remove 97% turbidity, 92.8% TSS, 95.5% TDS and 90.5% COD from sugar industry wastewater. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies were also performed to support the formation of flocs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age alters the host's susceptibility to immune induction. Humoral immunity with circulating antibodies, particularly immunoglobulin G (IgG), plays an essential role in immune response. IgG glycosylation in the fragment crystallizable (Fc) region, including sialylation, is important in regulating the effector function by interacting with Fc gamma receptors (FcγRs). Glycosylation is fundamentally changed with age and inflammatory responses. We aimed to explore the regulation of humoral immunity by comparing responses to antigen-induced immune challenges in young and adult mice using a local antigen-induced arthritis mouse model. This study examines the differences in immune response between healthy and immune-challenged states across these groups. Our initial assessment of the arthritis model indicated that adult mice presented more severe knee swelling than their younger counterparts. In contrast, we found that neither histological assessment, bone mineral density, nor the number of osteoclasts differs. Our data revealed an age-associated but not immune challenge increase in total IgG; the only subtype affected by immune challenge was IgG1 and partially IgG3. Interestingly, the sialylation of IgG2b and IgG3 is affected by age and immune challenges but not stimulated further by immune challenges in adult mice. This suggests a shift in IgG towards a pro-inflammatory and potentially pathogenic state with age and inflammation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 1872 monograph, Charles Darwin posited that "… the habit of expressing our feelings by certain movements, though now rendered innate, had been in some manner gradually acquired." 1 Nearly 150 years later, researchers are still teasing apart innate versus experience-dependent contributions to expression recognition. Indeed, studies have shown that face detection is surprisingly resilient to early visual deprivation, 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 pointing to plasticity that extends beyond dogmatic critical periods. 6 , 7 , 8 However, it remains unclear whether such resilience extends to downstream processing, such as the ability to recognize facial expressions. The extent to which innate versus experience-dependent mechanisms contribute to this ability has yet to be fully explored. 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 To investigate the impact of early visual experience on facial-expression recognition, we studied children with congenital cataracts who have undergone sight-correcting treatment 14 , 15 and tracked their longitudinal skill acquisition as they gain sight late in life. We introduce and explore two potential facilitators of late-life plasticity: the availability of newborn-like coarse visual acuity prior to treatment 16 and the privileged role of motion following treatment. 4 , 17 , 18 We find that early visual deprivation does not preclude partial acquisition of facial-expression recognition. While rudimentary pretreatment vision is sufficient to allow a low level of expression recognition, it does not facilitate post-treatment improvements. Additionally, only children commencing vision with high visual acuity privilege the use of dynamic cues. We conclude that skipping typical visual experience early in development and introducing high-resolution imagery late in development restricts, but does not preclude, facial-expression skill acquisition and that the representational mechanisms driving this learning differ from those that emerge during typical visual development., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The objectives of this study were: 1) to describe the socio-demographics and classify the chief complaints and reasons to encounter facilities of patients presenting to public healthcare facilities; 2) to explore differences in these complaints and: International Classification of Primary Care-3 (ICPC-3) groups across socio-demographic and health system levels., Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in three districts of Odisha, India. Within each district, the district hospital (DH), one Sub-district hospital (SDH) (if available), two Community health centers (CHCs), and two Primary health care centers (PHCs) were selected. Thus, a total of three DHs, three SDHs, six CHCs, and six PHCs were covered. Two tertiary healthcare facilities were also included. Patients aged 18 years and older, attending the Outpatient Departments (OPD) of sampled health facilities were chosen as study participants through systematic random sampling., Results: A total of 3044 patients were interviewed. In general, 65% of the sample reported symptoms as their chief complaint for reason of encounter, whereas 35% reported disease and diagnosis. The most common reasons to encounter health facilities were fever, hypertension, abdominal pain, chest pain, arthritis, skin disease, cough, diabetes, and injury. Among the symptoms, the highest number of patients reported the general category (29%), followed by the digestive system (16%). In the disease category, the circulatory system has the highest proportion, followed by the musculatory system. In symptom categories, general, digestive, and musculatory systems were the key systems for the reasons of encounter in outpatient departments irrespective of different groups of the population. In terms of different tiers of health systems, the top three reasons to visit OPD were dominated by the circulatory system, respiratory system, and musculatory system., Conclusion: This is the first Indian study using the ICPC-3 classification for all three levels of health care. Irrespective of age, socio-economic variables, and tiers of healthcare, the top three groups to visit public health facilities according to the ICPC-3 classification were consistent i.e., general, digestive, and circulatory. Implementation of standard management and referral guidelines for common diseases under these groups will improve the quality and burden at public health facilities in India., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Gupta et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)