Background Post‐COVID multisystem hyperinflammatory syndrome in children (MISC) has clinical and laboratory similarities with Kawasaki disease (KD). Inflammatory markers like C‐reactive protein (CRP), interleukin 6 (IL6) as well as N‐terminal probrain natriuretic peptide (NT‐proBNP) are elevated in both. This study attempts a comparative analysis of the 3 markers in an attempt at early differentiation for planning appropriate management. Methodology This analytical study conducted at the Institute of Child Health, Kolkata, India compared the levels of the above 3 markers at admission between 72 patients with KD, 30% of whom had coronary artery lesions (CALs) collected over a period of 18 months (Jan 2017‐June 2018), with 71 MISC patients over a period of 6 months (July 2020‐December 2020). The non‐parametric Mann‐Whitney U test was used to test for similarity in distributions of the samples of CRP, NT‐proBNP and IL6 in KD and MISC patients using correction factor for similar ranks. The 3 parameters were compared using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results Mean IL6 value in KD was 83.22 pg/mL and in MISC 199.91 pg/mL, which was not found to be statistically significant ( P = .322 > .05).However mean NT‐proBNP (914.91 pg/mL) with CRP level (96.32 mg/L) in KD was significantly lower ( P < .05 for both cases) than that in MISC (9141.16 pg/mL and 145.66 mg/L respectively). ROC analysis showed NT‐proBNP has the best sensitivity and specificity in predicting MISC. Conclusion NT‐proBNP and CRP are significantly higher among MISC patients; ROC analysis shows levels >935.7 pg/mL and >99.55 mg/L respectively might act as a guide to differentiate between them.

Image registration is important for numerous imaging applications such as three-dimensional reconstruction, multimodality correlations, image averaging and subtraction. Methods used for image registration are based upon either the shape and form of the image pairs or their densitometric relationships. This paper describes the algorithms used for five different registration methods; frequency domain cross-correlation, spatial domain cross-correlation, principal axes/center of mass, fiducials and manual. These methods were compared in terms of their accuracy, efficiency and application with several different data types including different species and modalities. The underlying mathematical bases for each also are presented and compared. The results of the comparisons showed that image quality influenced the behavior of all methods. Images of the blockface provide an excellent reference for subsequent registration. These results also suggest that the statistical performance of various methods is not a reliable metric when distant and different images are registered. Visual comparisons by image overlap and pixel differencing illustrated that some methods are more prone to rotational error than others, especially when repeated pairwise registrations were computed along the rostral/caudal axis.

No abstract

In this paper we review the light scattering spectra of optical fibers and present new data on Raman spectra of optical fibers. The results include Raman spectra of fused silica fibers and effects of dopants and irradiation. Large scattering volumes available in optical fibers afford one to detect low dopant concentrations and relatively weak second order spectra. Low frequency Raman spectra of optical fibers shows the expected non-Debye type anomaly.

No abstract