A variety of commonly used ice nucleants have been tested for comparable simulated adiabatic parcel ascents in the Colorado State University dynamic cloud chamber. Atmospheric adiabatic expansion and cooling of a parcel of air is simulated by evacuation and wall temperature control within the working volume. Ice nucleation characteristics have been studied for the injection of nuclei preceding the formation of clouds at a temperature near 0°C and following nuclei injection directly into cooling cloud parcels. A summary and comparison of the nucleation rates and mechanisms observed for four different ice nucleating aerosols is presented. In some cases, the results observed in the simulations of real cloud processes were quite different than found previously in the static conditions of the CSU isothermal cloud chamber containing an artificially generated cloud. In particular, complexed hygroscopic nucleating aerosols (2Agl.Nal and 2AgI.KI) display much higher nucleation rates during expansional cooling than for injection into supercooled isothermal cloud. Some implications of the experimental results to the expected results of seeding atmospheric clouds are discussed.


Orthosiphon stamineus or known as Misai kucing is a popular herbal tea plant that helps in treating the ailments of kidney and bladder, diabetes mellitus and gout. Due to high demand of this medicinal plant, a large propagation of this plant is recommended. In this study, a protocol for regeneration of Orthosiphon stamineus using axillary bud as explant was established. Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with various concentrations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) were evaluated for their effects on shoot induction. Results obtained revealed that the best shooting ability was observed when explants were cultured on MS medium supplemented with 0.2 ppm of BAP. Subsequently, shoot elongation of established shoot was obtained in medium containing gibberelic acid (GA3) with concentration of 0.5 ppm and 1.0 ppm. The best shoot elongation was achieved with medium supplemented with 0.5 ppm of GA3. Subsequently, the elongated explants were transformed to root induction medium with the addition of either 0.2 ppm of 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) or 0.5 ppm NAA. The explants showed positive response in medium supplemented with 0.2 ppm of NAA. From this study it could be confirmed that suitable concentration of plant growth regulators could be used in the regeneration of Orthosiphon stamineus through tissue culture technique.


In Ghana, despite increasing enrolment, majority of children do not have access to quality early childhood education. The lack of a context-specific and culturally relevant definition of quality in early childhood education is one of the challenges stakeholders face in promoting quality standards in Ghana. In this paper, we use data collected through qualitative semistructured interviews to explore stakeholder definition of quality in early childhood education, the implications of quality, and the key characteristics emphasized in recruiting teachers into quality early childhood education. For the participants, quality early childhood education embodies three key components: safety, nutrition, and teaching. Cognitive development, social skills, and leadership abilities were emphasized as some of the benefits of quality early childhood education for children. Regarding the recruitment of teachers, participants emphasized tertiary education rather than attitudinal and behavioral qualities as relevant for teachers in early childhood education. In view of the emphasis placed on nutrition in defining quality, we recommend that advocacy groups must ensure that the government's school feeding program extends to day care centers. This will go a long way to ensure that children from poor households are not excluded from the benefits of quality early childhood education.


Family violence victims face a problem under Victoria's Residential Tenancies Act 1997 ('RTA'). Victims must apply to access its protections in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ('VCAT') which is a separate jurisdiction to where they apply for intervention orders under the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic), ie, the Magistrates' Court of Victoria. This may result in victims having to navigate a completely different jurisdiction, ie, VCAT, if they access the RTA's protections there. This makes the process unnecessarily complex, and it may even deter some victims from accessing the RTA's protections for a safe home. Victoria's 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence identified this problem, and this article advances and unpacks a recommendation it made to consider legislative reform to simplify processes for victims. The research presented herein, while focused on Victorian law, may also inform potential approaches to law reform in other Australian jurisdictions.


Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the number of skin punctures and volume of blood removed for analytical purposes and the number and volume of red blood cell transfusions performed in premature neonates. Patients and methods: A case-control study was performed with a retrospective review of clinical records. Data about blood samples was gathered from the nursery forms and descriptive statistics were performed. Neonates less than 37 weeks gestational age, born in our hospital between 1/1/1992 and 12/31/1996, were studied. They were divided into two groups: Group 1) Those neonates receiving red blood cell transfusions; and Group 2) The control groups, which was comprised of the next premature baby born after each infant who underwent transfusion. Results: There were 419 premature infants out of 9,635 live newborns (4.3%). Of the 419 premature infants, 123 (29.3%) underwent transfusion therapy. The study groups after exclusions were comprised of 105 infants in groups 1 and 105 infants in the control group, or group 2. The average number of blood samples was 5.4 per infant (range 0-37). The mean volume of blood removed was 26.3 cc per infant (range 0-167 cc) or 15.1cc/kg (birthweight). The total number of transfusions was 187, with a mean of 1.8 per infant (range 1-12). The mean volume transfused was 43.1 cc per infant (range 20-146 cc). The number of blood samples, total volume of blood removed and percentage of blood volume removed were significantly higher in the transfusion group than in the control group.


This article presents experimental results that show feedforward neural networks are well suited for analog IC parametric fault diagnosis. It describes a discriminant sampling method for analog IC parametric faults simulation for a neural-based diagnostic system to reduce the computational overhead of the neural network training phase. Analog circuit fault simulation has not achieved the same degree of success as its digital counterpart owing to the difficulty in modeling the more complex analog behavior. Analog circuit fault simulation does rely on time-consuming circuit simulations on a large number of sampled points subject to various process deviations to emulate the actual faulty conditions. The proposed algorithm uses an effective importance sampling strategy to capture the parametric acceptance boundaries of the circuit under test. It makes use of circuit simulations effectively to relate each circuit performance to the process disturbances and to establish response functions that are accurate at the transition boundaries of the acceptance region. With the proposed approach, simulation samples can be generated for fault simulations mostly at the boundaries of the acceptance region to institute the discriminant functions for parametric faults testing using a neural network approach. The proposed algorithm is more computationally effective when compared to the Monte Carlo method.


INTRODUCTION
The study of microbial communities based on the combined analysis of genomic and proteomic data - called metaproteogenomics - has gained increased research attention in recent years. This relatively young field aims to elucidate the functional and taxonomic interplay of proteins in microbiomes and its implications on human health and the environment. Areas covered: This article reviews bioinformatics methods and software tools dedicated to the analysis of data from metaproteomics and metaproteogenomics experiments. In particular, it focuses on the creation of tailored protein sequence databases, on the optimal use of database search algorithms including methods of error rate estimation, and finally on taxonomic and functional annotation of peptide and protein identifications. Expert opinion: Recently, various promising strategies and software tools have been proposed for handling typical data analysis issues in metaproteomics. However, severe challenges remain that are highlighted and discussed in this article; these include: (i) robust false positive assessment of peptide and protein identifications, (ii) complex protein inference against a background of highly redundant data, (iii) taxonomic and functional post-processing of identification data, and finally, (iv) the assessment and provision of metrics and tools for quantitative analysis.


The brain is the most mysterious and intricate biological structure known to man. It dominates the way we live, think, reason and behave. It is built of billions of neurons that communicate with each other through trillions of connections using electrical signals. The neocortex is undoubtedly the most complex brain region, hosting all higher brain functions such as sensory perception and cognitive behavior. Scientists have been struggling for more than a century to identify the anatomical blueprint of its cellular organization and to understand its dynamic behavior. The Blue Brain Project aims to develop the first simulation-based research environment for modeling and studying the basic building blocks of the neocortex, the neocortical column. The model column is based on data obtained from the juvenile rat somatosensory cortex. The best way to build such a large-scale model is by following a data-constraint driven approach and integrating biological information at different levels. In this thesis, I present novel informatics approaches to systematically constrain the membrane protein composition of different neocortical neuron types. In the first study, I investigate the single-cell gene expression patterns of ion channels in different neuron types and present a combinatorial rule extractor model that reverse engineers the observed expression rules in ten different neocortical neuron types. In the second study, I present a physical constrain checker that mines different publicly available data resources regarding all known membrane proteins such as channels and receptors, and extracts available information relating to their specific location on different parts of the neuronal morphologies, their 3D morphological structures as well as their genetic and proteomic annotations. Combining the results from both studies allows us to build neuronal models that better reflect the biological reality of neocortical neurons, ensuring the correct localization and distribution of membrane proteins across neuronal morphologies and computing their maximum count number based on their molecular surface areas and the available neuronal membrane surface area. This novel data-constraint driven approach is the first step towards integrating existing biological knowledge and constraints from various data sources into the process of building neuron models, in this way improving the neuron models as they come closer to the biological reality of real neurons.


Abstract The region is broadly determined by desert, which forms a huge belt between the western Palaearctic and the Afrotropics. Fourteen out of the 125 odonate species recorded so far are endemics. There are two main centres of endemism in the region: the northern Maghreb and the southern Arabian Peninsula. Odonate habitats in the desert are especially endangered by dryness and pollution. Fourteen species - most of them endemics - are regarded as critical. Conservation measures are suggested.


ABSTRACT In this paper the authors will present the design and preliminary test results for a distributed electric generating system that uses renewable energy sources for economical load -following and peak -shaving capability in an oil -free, high-speed micro -turboalternator system using compliant foil bearings and a permanent magnet alternator. Test results achieved with the prototype system operating to full speed and under power generating mode will be presented. A comparison between predicted and measured electrical output will also be presented up to a power generating level of 25 kWe at approximately 55,000 rpm. The excellent correlation between design and test provides the basis for scale up to larger power levels. Based upon the turboalterna tor test results a thermodynamic cycle analysis of a system using low grade waste heat water at approximately 100 C will be reviewed. The tradeoff study results for a series of environmentally friendly refrigerant working fluids will also be presented including sensitivity to vaporization and condensing temperatures. Based on the cycle and pinch point analyses predicted maximum output power was determined. Finally a preliminary turbine design for the selected R134a working fluid was completed. The results of this study show that a net output power level of greater than 40 kW is possible for approximately 240 l/m flow of water at 100C is possible.


This study investigated the efficiency of two sperm preparation methods, namely, density gradient centrifugation and the swim-up method, in selecting spermatozoa based on the DNA fragmentation index and the apoptosis levels. Fifteen semen samples from infertile couples underwent sperm preparation in this study. The Makler® counting chamber and Eosin Y staining were used to analyse the sperm concentration, motility and viability. The sperm chromatin dispersion assay was used to determine the sperm DNA fragmentation index, while western blotting was used to determine the apoptosis levels. This study showed that Swim Up (SU) and Density Gradient Centrifugation (DGC) methods were able to select sperm with lower DFIs compared to sperm from whole semen. The SU method selected for sperm in both the "moderate" and "severe" DFI categories that have low DFIs better than the DGC method. Western blotting for the expression of caspase 3 in sperm showed a band of ∼35 kDa and this band's intensity was lower in post-SU sperm compared to post-DGC sperm. Both methods selected for sperm with low caspase 3 expression, although the SU method selected for sperm with low activity of caspase 3 better than the DGC method. In addition to selecting for sperm with better progressive motility and viability, the SU and DGC methods also selected for sperm with low sperm DFIs and apoptosis levels.


The vasculature is a dynamic structure, growing and regressing in response to embryonic development, growth, changing physiological demands, wound healing, tumor growth and other stimuli. At the microvascular level, network geometry is not predetermined, but emerges as a result of biological responses of each vessel to the stimuli that it receives. These responses may be summarized as angiogenesis, remodeling and pruning. Previous theoretical simulations have shown how two-dimensional vascular patterns generated by these processes in the mesentery are consistent with experimental observations. During early development of the brain, a mesh-like network of vessels is formed on the surface of the cerebral cortex. This network then forms branches into the cortex, forming a three-dimensional network throughout its thickness. Here, a theoretical model is presented for this process, based on known or hypothesized vascular response mechanisms together with experimentally obtained information on the structure and hemodynamics of the mouse cerebral cortex. According to this model, essential components of the system include sensing of oxygen levels in the midrange of partial pressures and conducted responses in vessel walls that propagate information about metabolic needs of the tissue to upstream segments of the network. The model provides insights into the effects of deficits in vascular response mechanisms, and can be used to generate physiologically realistic microvascular network structures.


In this paper, the traditional passive loop filter is improved, and a new type of Cascade Third-order filter structure and Graphical Phase Design method is proposed, which greatly simplifies high-order PLL filter's design, analysis and calculation. According to graphical phase design principle, parameters for cascade third-order filter could be figured out from the given formula, the derived result is simulated in the form of Bode plots and Unit-step response with Pspice software and the loop target under different parameters is compared. Experiments show that this third-order filter could significantly improve the stability of PLL, deeply attenuate the phase detector's high-frequency noise and is well adapted to the loop gain change. Users can also change the design parameters flexibly according to the system requirements with this filter.


In this paper, the effect of ceramsite aggregate size and gradation on the sound absorption and mechanical properties of the materials were studied and the relationship between material's pore structure and its sound absorption were discussed. It can be found from the results that the sound absorption and mechanical properties of the ceramsite sound-absorbing materials increase with the content of the fine ceramsite increased due to the decrease of the median pore diameter of the ceramsite sound-absorbing materials where the improvement of the sound absorption at the high frequency band is more significant suggesting that fine pores have a better sound-absorbing effect for high-frequency noise. Higher effective porosity doesn't mean better sound absorption, because materials with coarse pores have shorter internal routes for sound waves and less friction during sound waves passing through pores, which conversely decreases the material's sound absorption. Ceramsite with higher internal porosity and more uniform pore diameter distribution can produce materials with better sound absorption.


Reconstruction of images in electrical impedance tomography requires the solution of a nonlinear inverse problem on noisy data. This problem is typically ill-conditioned and requires either simplifying assumptions or regularization based on a priori knowledge. The authors present a reconstruction algorithm using neural network techniques which calculates a linear approximation of the inverse problem directly from finite element simulations of the forward problem. This inverse is adapted to the geometry of the medium and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) used during network training. Results show good conductivity reconstruction where measurement SNR is similar to the training conditions. The advantages of this method are its conceptual simplicity and ease of implementation, and the ability to control the compromise between the noise performance and resolution of the image reconstruction.


This study explores the extent to which changes in age-at-marriage laws are effective in curbing early marriage and, if so, whether delays in age at marriage brought about by legal changes increase women's likelihood to participate in higher education. To answer these questions, we combine individual-level data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) with longitudinal information on policy changes from the PROSPERED project for six lowand middle-income countries from three broad regions: Benin and Mauritania (Sub-Sharan Africa), Tajikistan and Kazakhstan (Central Asia), and Nepal and Bhutan (South Asia). We adopted regression discontinuity design to obtain estimates of the causal effect of changes in age-at-marriage laws on early marriage and educational outcomes. Our results suggest that these laws work only selectively – specifically, significant reductions in early marriage following the law implementation are observed only in two out of the six countries – yet when they work, their impact on early marriage has important implications for women's highereducation attendance. In Tajikistan and Nepal, an increase in the legal age at marriage by one or two years, respectively, leads to a 20-60 percentage-point higher likelihood of attending some form of higher education. In light of the significant human capital gains documented in countries where laws proved to have an impact, we conclude by arguing that, in order for changes in laws to be effective, better laws must be accompanied by better enforcement and monitoring to delay marriage and protect the rights of women and girls. Adequate policy implementation and enforcement are necessary preconditions for actual change and should be the subject of greater international attention and investments.


Water-soluble, doxorubicin (DOX) conjugated gold nanoparticles (DOX conjugated Au NPs) exhibiting a significant pH-responsive drug release profile have been prepared and characterized in this study. The Au NPs were stabilized by thiolated methoxy polyethylene glycol (MPEG-SH) and methyl thioglycolate (MTG) at an equal molar ratio. The anticancer drug DOX was conjugated to the MTG segments of the thiol-stabilized Au NPs using hydrazine as the linker. The resulting hydrazone bonds formed between the DOX molecules and the MTG segments of the thiol-stabilized Au NPs are acid cleavable, thereby providing a strong pH-responsive drug release profile. The MPEG segments attached to the Au NPs provide the Au NPs with excellent solubility and stability in an aqueous medium while potentially enhancing the circulation time. The DOX loading level was determined to be 23 wt.%. The DOX release rate from the DOX conjugated Au NPs in an acid medium (i.e., pH 5.3) was dramatically higher than that in physiological conditions (i.e., pH 7.4). The DOX conjugated Au NPs and/or the DOX released from them were found both at the perinuclear regions and the nuclei of 4T1 tumor cells after incubation in a DOX conjugated Au NPs solution for 28 h. These novel DOX conjugated Au NPs have the potential to simultaneously enhance CT imaging contrast and facilitate photothermal cancer therapy while delivering anticancer drugs to their target sites.


The objective of the present study was to assess and compare the effective doses in the wrist region resulting from conventional radiography device, multislice computed tomography (MSCT) device and two cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) devices using MOSFET dosemeters and a custom made anthropomorphic RANDO phantom according to the ICRP 103 recommendation. The effective dose for the conventional radiography was 1.0 μSv. The effective doses for the NewTom 5 G CBCT ranged between 0.7 μSv and 1.6 μSv, for the Planmed Verity CBCT 2.4 μSv and for the MSCT 8.6 μSv. When compared with the effective dose for AP- and LAT projections of a conventional radiographic device, this study showed an 8.6-fold effective dose for standard MSCT protocol and between 0.7 and 2.4-fold effective dose for standard CBCT protocols. When compared to the MSCT device, the CBCT devices offer a 3D view of the wrist at significantly lower effective doses.


In this paper we outline ongoing research into a computational model of association based on the reinterpretation of a source object to fit the target. We describe the structure of the model and the concepts from which it arises. Preliminary results of visual associations made by the system in a simple shape domain are presented. We also discuss a planned application of our model to the analysis of a real-world creative design.


By including the effects of superstring thresholds, we reconsider minimal string unification together with the requirement of producing a supersymmetry-breaking gluino condensate in the hidden sector. This gives, for examples of phenomenologically-viable $Z_8'$ and other related orbifolds, the constraint that $0.1215 \leq \alpha_s(M_Z) \leq 0.1270$. In such models, a hidden photino can be a source of cosmological dark matter detectable by gravitational microlensing.


Coupled fire-atmosphere models are increasingly being used to study low-intensity fires, such as those that are used in prescribed fire applications. Thus, the need arises to evaluate these models for their ability to accurately represent fire spread in marginal burning conditions. In this study, wind and fuel data collected during the Prescribed Fire Combustion and Atmospheric Dynamics Research Experiments (RxCADRE) fire campaign were used to generate initial and boundary conditions for coupled fire-atmosphere simulations. We present a novel method to obtain fuels representation at the model grid scale using a combination of imagery, machine learning, and field sampling. Several methods to generate wind input conditions for the model from eight different anemometer measurements are explored. We find a strong sensitivity of fire outcomes to wind inputs. This result highlights the critical need to include variable wind fields as inputs in modeling marginal fire conditions. This work highlights the complexities of comparing physics-based model results against observations, which are more acute in marginal burning conditions, where stronger sensitivities to local variability in wind and fuels drive fire outcomes.


The Distributed and Fair Access (DFA) protocol is proposed for multihop wireless networks. The proposed protocol eliminates several problems existed in the original binary countdown (BCD) algorithm, such as lack of fairness, data collision and the inefficiency of channel usage, by introducing hidden station elimination and second chance channel contention that are suitable for multihop networks. Further in this paper, numerical analysis of modeling the behavior of DFA in multihop networks are presented. With low computational complexity, the proposed model estimates the transmission probability and the channel throughput. In our analysis, the data transmission influenced by the remote stations is carefully monitored and analyzed. Our extensive simulation results have verified the proposed model and demonstrated the superior performance of DFA comparing with other existing MAC protocols including the IEEE 802.11 and SYN-MAC. Equipped with many attractive features such as high efficiency, fairness, simplicity and robustness, DFA can be served as a promising alternative MAC protocol for the distributed wireless networks.


Abstract Problem Early detection of syphilis-infected people followed by effective treatment is essential for syphilis prevention and control. Approach Starting in 2010 the local health authority in Yunnan province, China, developed a network of 670 service sites for syphilis testing, diagnosis and treatment or for testing-only with referral for further diagnosis and treatment. Point-of-care tests for syphilis and syphilis interventions were integrated into the existing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and control programme. To improve the syphilis services, a pay-for-performance scheme was introduced in which providers were paid for testing and treating patients. Local setting Yunnan province is the region hardest hit by HIV infection and disproportionately burdened with syphilis cases in China. Relevant changes The proportion of attendees at voluntary counselling and testing clinics who were tested for syphilis increased from 46.2% (32 877/71 162) in 2010 to 98.2% (68 012/69 259) in 2015. Syphilis-infected cases treated with the recommended therapy increased from 26.6% (264/993) in 2010 to 82.5% (453/549) in 2015 at designated testing, diagnosis and treatment sites. Lessons learnt The strategy greatly increased the uptake of syphilis testing and treatment among people at risk. Introduction of point-of-care tests for syphilis increased coverage of the testing services. Introduction of a pay-for-performance scheme seemed to motivate health-care providers to undertake syphilis intervention services.


Altruism is a well-established reason underlying research participation. Less is known about altruism in adolescent-parent decision-making about clinical trials enrolling healthy adolescents. This qualitative investigation focused on identifying spontaneous statements of altruism within adolescent-parent (dyadic) discussions of participation in a hypothetical phase I clinical trial related to adolescent sexual health. Content analysis revealed several response patterns to each other's altruistic reasoning. Across 70 adolescent-parent dyads in which adolescents were 14 to 17 years of age and 91% of their parents were mothers, a majority (61%) of dyadic discussions included a statement reflecting altruism. Parents responded to adolescents' statements of altruism more frequently than adolescents responded to parents' statements. Responses included: expresses concern, reiterates altruistic reasoning, agrees with altruistic reasoning, and adds to/expands altruistic reasoning. Since an altruistic perspective was often balanced with concerns about risk or study procedures, researchers cannot assume that altruism will directly lead to study participation. Optimizing the informed consent process for early phase clinical trials involving healthy adolescents may include supporting parents to have conversations with their adolescents which will enhance their capacity to consider all aspects of trial participation.


This thesis firstly aims at discussing the early works of American poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) through the bio-philosophical perspectives developed since the investigations of Estonian Jacob von Uexkull (1864-1944). The study elucidates Uexkull's research on the web-like forms of life that is the Umwelt of animals and Moore's creation of poetic environments. Such investigations provide a basis for the analysis of Moore's animals and environments in dialogue with Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) concepts of "poverty in world", and "animal captivation". Uexkull's and Heidegger's concepts are revised by Italian Giorgio Agamben (1942- ), who proposes that there is an openness in the state of being ontologically captivated, caused by interactional processes occurring within the environment. Subsequently, taking into account these same perspectives, this thesis offers a comparative study of Marianne Moore and Brazilian poet Joao Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999), engaging, respectively, her early poems with his book O Cao Sem Plumas [The Dog without Feathers], written in 1950. From the bio-philosophical perspectives previously discussed, this study focuses on moral and ethical stances addressed towards interpretations of the onto-ethological (Buchanan, 2008) nature of animals. The study analyses how both Moore and Melo Neto convey their ethical reflections and specific moral issues through expressions of nature and animal life, especially when they emphasise contexts of violence, misery and deprivation, either in material or conceptual respects, involved with the ontological and world-forming conditions of both animals and human beings. Therefore, the research will focus on their use of literary devices, such as allegories, and literary genres, such as fables, in order to develop both explicit and implicit dimensions of their poetry, thus providing a deeper understanding of the ontological status of animals and human beings.


Despite extensive research, the mechanism(s) by which acupuncture works remain unclear. Evidence points towards psychological and social mechanisms of acupuncture, but few studies have looked at the factors that may influence those mechanisms. We performed an original study of the relationship between experience, knowledge, and expectations in acupuncture patients. We found that social factors may influence expectations for patients seeking acupuncture, but that the factors influencing a patient's experience of acupuncture cannot be easily generalized to the overall patient population. Our study may help future investigators avoid making incorrect generalizations based on circumstantial, context-specific evidence by providing a model for determining comparability within and between patient populations.


The aim of this paper is to review the literature and show the strength and weakness of business incubation in developing countries. This p aper is based on a wide literature review, focused on the identification of the incubators as tool for economic development. We found that 1) business incubators provide support for start-up companies, 2) graduated companies tend to have a greater probability of success and 3) graduated companies ha significant positive impact on economic development. These findings can help policy makers, governments, and practitioners with their implementation in incubator programs, leading to be tter planning and a greater chance of success. This paper contributes to enhance the understanding of the strategic implementation of incubator models in developing countries and provides useful information to both academicians and practitioners who are interested in incubator progr ams.


The study investigated how Private Secondary Schools (PSSs) in Tanzania mainland are financed. The aim was to identify sources of funds for these schools. It also examined how each source contributes to school budget and assessed the adequacy of funding in meeting of the PSSs needs in terms of school infrastructure, human resource funding and teaching-learning materials. Finally, the study assessed the opinions of heads of schools and managers on the challenges they face in meeting the schools' running costs. The findings of the study indicated that the major source of financing PSSs was Parents(School fees). Other financial sources albeit inadequate included donations, income generation projects and fund raising. The findings show that girl' schools spent more than boys and mixed (boys and girls) schools. They also revealed that the high Teachers'
Knowledge Stock Index (TKSI) was related to high quality teachers which also reflected high unit costs. The researcher also observed that variations in the quality of
infrastructure, equipment, human resource and T-L materials reflected the variations in the schools' unit costs.
The researcher recommends that the government should set PSSs fees by factoring in the rising costs of goods and services fuel led by inflation. It should also consider giving support to PSSs under the envisaged Public Private Partnership. PSSs should establish income generating projects to augment the major source of funds (school fees). The study recommends a similar study using a larger sample to obtain results that will give the national insight on how better PSSs can be financed.


Coarse-graining (CG) approaches are becoming essential tools in the study of complex systems because they can considerably speed up computer simulations, with the promise of determining properties in a range of length scales and time scales never before possible. While much progress in this field has been achieved in recent years, application of CG methods is still inhibited by the limited understanding of a number of conceptual points that need to be resolved to open up the field of CG to a wide range of applications in material science and biology. In this paper, we present some of the key findings that emerged from the development of the integral equation theory of coarse-graining (IECG), which addresses some of the fundamental questions in coarse-graining. Although the IECG method pertains to the CG of polymer liquids, and specifically homopolymer melts are illustrated here, many of the results that emerge from the study of the IECG approach are general and apply to the CG of any molecular liquid. Through this method, we developed a formal relation between the statistical mechanics of CG and a number of predicted physical properties. On the basis of the theory of liquids, the IECG affords the analytical solution of the intermolecular potential for macromolecules represented by a Markov chain of CG sites, thus providing a transparent tool for analysis of the properties in coarse-graining. We identify three key requirements that render a CG model useful: accuracy, transferability, and computational efficiency. When these three requirements are fulfilled, the CG model becomes widely applicable and useful for studying regions in the phase space that are not covered by atomistic simulations. In the process, the IECG answers formally a number of relevant questions on how structural, thermodynamic, and dynamical properties are modified during coarse-graining. It sheds light upon how the level of CG affects the shape of the CG potential and how, in turn, the shape of the potential affects the physical properties. It tests the validity of selecting the potential-of-mean force as the effective pairwise CG potential and the role of higher-order many-body corrections to the pairwise potential to recover structural and thermodynamic consistency of the CG model. Because the IECG theory can be analytically formalized, it does not suffer from the problem of transferability and, in the canonical ensemble, leads to consistent pair distribution functions, pressure, isothermal compressibility, and excess free energy at variable levels of CG from the atomistic to the ultra-CG model, where macromolecules are represented as interpenetrable soft spheres.


The authors studied the peculiarities of the course of experimental influenza infection induced by the administration of highly and poorly immunogenic strains of influenza virus to mice. Influenza viruses with varying immunogenic activity were obtained from the vaccine strain A/Victoria/35/72/50 (H3N2) by immunoselection modelling the process of natural selection. The administration of strains with high and poor immunogenicity to mice of the F1 (CBA X C57B1) line led to the development of acute influenza infection accompanied by reproduction of viruses in the tissue of the lungs and other internal organs. The poorly immunogenic strain 5/II-Victoria, unlike the initial virus A/Victoria/35 and its highly immunogenic variant 2/I-Victoria, is able to circulate for a long time in the organism of the infected animal causing development of chronic inflammatory processes and stimulating the formation of neoplasms. Immunogenicity is thus one of the factors determining the character of the course of experimental influenza infection. A conclusion was drawn concerning the epidemiological and aetiological importance of viruses with reduced immunogenicity and their role in the evolution of influenza virus. It is presumed that reduced immunogenicity is one of the adaptation mechanisms of aggression permitting the population of influenza virus to escape control by specific humoral immunity.


This article explores the educational concept of experiential learning, particularly in terms of service learning and situated learning. It proposes an alternative definition of an academic learning community, namely the role of primary social relationships as God-given contexts for learning It concludes with practical application of the enormous potential for accomplishment of educational objectives through situated learning.


Although overall prescribing of atomoxetine hydrochloride (HCI) (Strattera) continues to decline, recent anecdotal reports suggest emerging uses of the product in combination therapy. In this article we examine trends in atomoxetine (HCI) prescribing as well as use in combination with other psychotropic classes. An expert commentary is provided on the data.


The second-order nonlinear responses of inviscid chiral fluids near local equilibrium are investigated by applying the chiral kinetic theory (CKT) incorporating side-jump effects. It is shown that the local equilibrium distribution function can be nontrivially introduced in a comoving frame with respect to the fluid velocity when the quantum corrections in collisions are involved. For the study of anomalous transport, contributions from both quantum corrections in anomalous hydrodynamic equations of motion and those from the CKT and Wigner functions are considered under the relaxation-time (RT) approximation, which result in anomalous charge Hall currents propagating along the cross product of the background electric field and the temperature (or chemical-potential) gradient and of the temperature and chemical-potential gradients. On the other hand, the nonlinear quantum correction on the charge density vanishes in the classical RT approximation, which in fact satisfies the matching condition given by the anomalous equation obtained from the CKT.


This paper presents a new Fast Kurtogram Method in the time-frequency domain using novel types of statistical features instead of the kurtosis. For this study, the problem of four classes for Bearing Fault Detection is investigated using various statistical features. This research is conducted in four stages. At first, the stability of each feature for each fault mode is investigated. Then, resistance to load changes as well as failure growth is studied. In the end, the resolution and fault detection for each feature using comparison with a determined pattern and the coherence rate is calculated. From the above results, the best feature that is both resistant and repeatable to different variations, as well as having suitable accuracy of detection and resolution, is selected. It is found that kurtosis feature is not in a good condition in comparison with other statistical features such as harmmean and median. This approach increases the fault identification accuracy significantly.


Adversarial attacks on graphs have attracted considerable research interests. Existing works assume the attacker is either (partly) aware of the victim model, or able to send queries to it. These assumptions are, however, unrealistic. To bridge the gap between theoretical graph attacks and real-world scenarios, in this work, we propose a novel and more realistic setting: strict black-box graph attack, in which the attacker has no knowledge about the victim model at all and is not allowed to send any queries. To design such an attack strategy, we first propose a generic graph filter to unify different families of graph-based models. The strength of attacks can then be quantified by the change in the graph filter before and after attack. By maximizing this change, we are able to find an effective attack strategy, regardless of the underlying model. To solve this optimization problem, we also propose a relaxation technique and approximation theories to reduce the difficulty as well as the computational expense. Experiments demonstrate that, even with no exposure to the model, the Macro-F1 drops 6.4% in node classification and 29.5% in graph classification, which is a significant result compared with existent works.


OH radicals (A2Σ→ X2Π, 0-0) generated during air negative pulsed discharge are diagnosed in a nozzle-cylinder reactor by optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The nozzle high-voltage discharge electrode is put in the middle of the cylinder steel reactor which is grounded. The effects of the pulse repetition rate, the humidity of the air in the reactor, the outer diameter of the nozzle electrode, and the flow rate of the air through the reactor on the relative intensity of OH radicals' (A2Σ→ X2Π, 0-0) OES were investigated. Results show that higher pulse repetition rate, lower flow rate of the air, or smaller diameter of the nozzle is helpful to get stronger relative intensity of OH radicals' (A2 Σ→ X2Π, 0-0) OES. To some extent, OH radicals' ( A2Σ→ X2Π, 0-0) yield can be increased by increasing the humidity of the air; however, it will be decreased when the humidity is too high. In our experiments, the humidity of the air being 55% is the best.


Meta-Imitation Learning is a promising technique for the robot to learn a new task from observing one or a few human demonstrations. However, it usually requires a significant number of demonstrations both from humans and robots during the meta-training phase, which is a laborious and hard work for data collection, especially in recording the actions and specifying the correspondence between human and robot. In this work, we present an approach of meta-imitation learning by watching video demonstrations from humans. In comparison to prior works, our approach is able to translate human videos into practical robot demonstrations and train the meta-policy with adaptive loss based on the quality of the translated data. Our approach relies only on human videos and does not require robot demonstration, which facilitates data collection and is more in line with human imitation behavior. Experiments reveal that our method achieves the comparable performance to the baseline on fast learning a set of vision-based tasks through watching a single video demonstration.


There is growing scholarly interest in older adults involved in crime and their lives in prison. However, the specific group of older adults who persistently offend (OAPO) and their desistance intentions has received little attention. The present study aims to explore the lived experiences of OAPO who intend to desist from crime. Seventeen OAPO were interviewed, and an interpretive phenomenological analysis approach was used to analyze the narratives they presented. Participants' interviews revealed four superordinate themes: (1) insight and change in the lives of OAPO; (2) a series of losses lead to disillusionment with a life of crime; (3) desistance as the only alternative; and (4) fear of death in prison as a catalyst for desistance. The findings suggest that desistance intention among older adults in prison is an individualized process deeply affected by age-related motivations and dynamics.


Analysis is made of the intestinal microflora in 43 patients suffering from reactive arthritides (ReA) that developed after intestinal infection. The overwhelming majority of the patients manifested a decrease of the level of the bifidoflora. The disorders of the intestinal microflora were related to the disease activity and standing. Bifidumbacterine was found to produce a significant beneficial effect on the course of ReA and to cause no serious side effects. According to the preliminary data, the efficacy of bifidumbacterin exceeded that of the known basic drug salazopyridazine, thus making it possible to apply the bifidum-containing drugs as basic agents in the treatment of ReA.


Modern thin-client systems are designed to provide the same graphical interfaces and applications available on traditional desktop computers while centralizing administration and allowing more efficient use of computing resources. Despite the rapidly increasing popularity of these client-server systems, there are few reliable analyses of their performance. Industry standard benchmark techniques commonly used for measuring desktop system performance are ill-suited for measuring the performance of thin-client systems because these benchmarks only measure application performance on the server, not the actual user-perceived performance on the client. To address this problem, we have developed slow-motion benchmarking, a new measurement technique for evaluating thin-client systems. In slow-motion benchmarking, performance is measured by capturing network packet traces between a thin client and its respective server during the execution of a slow-motion version of a conventional benchmark application. These results can then be used either independently or in conjunction with conventional benchmark results to yield an accurate and objective measure of the performance of thin-client systems. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of slow-motion benchmarking by using this technique to measure the performance of several popular thin-client systems in various network environments on Web and multimedia workloads. Our results show that slow-motion benchmarking solves the problems with using conventional benchmarks on thin-client systems and is an accurate tool for analyzing the performance of these systems.


Psoriasis may lead to subsequent colorectal cancer, since chronic systemic inflammation is the common etiologic factor in both psoriasis and colorectal cancer. It is a matter of dispute whether biological agents used in the treatment of psoriasis cause predisposition to colorectal cancer as a result of their immunosuppressive effect. Medical records of psoriasis patients who underwent colonoscopy before biological agents were reviewed. Colonoscopy was performed in all patients who were aged 50 years and older and in patients younger than 50, if they had positive fecal occult blood test results. The study included 95 patients between the age of 34 to 84. Colonoscopy results revealed tubular adenoma in 16 (16.8%) patients, hyperplastic polyps in 7 (7.4%) patients, villous adenoma in 1 (1.1%) patient, and tubulovillous adenoma in 1 (1.1%) patient. Two patients were diagnosed with colon cancer detected by a former colonoscopy, which was recommended by their dermatologist before the biological agent treatment plan. These results revealed that adenomatous polyps which can evolve to colon adenocarcinoma were the most frequent polyp type in patients with psoriasis. We suggest that routine colonoscopy should be performed before the initiation of biological therapy in psoriasis patients who are aged 50 years old and over.


Ticks and the pathogens they transmit constitute a growing burden for human and animal health worldwide. In the last years, high-throughput detection and sequencing technologies (HTT) have revealed that individual ticks carry a high diversity of microorganisms, including pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. Despite several studies have contributed to the availability of a catalog of microorganisms associated to different tick species, major limitations and challenges remain ahead HTT studies to acquire further insights on the microbial complexity associated to ticks. Currently, using next generation sequencing (NGS), bacteria genera (or higher taxonomic levels) can be recorded; however, species identification remains problematic which in turn affects pathogen detection using NGS. Microfluidic PCR, a high-throughput detection technology, can detect up to 96 different pathogen species, and its combination with NGS might render interesting insights into pathogen-microbiota co-occurrence patterns. Microfluidic PCR, however, is also limited because detection of pathogen strains has not been implemented, and therefore, putative associations among bacterial genotypes are currently unknown. Combining NGS and microfluidic PCR data may prove challenging. Here, we review the impact of some HTT applied to tick microbiology research and propose network analysis as an integrative data analysis benchmark to unravel the structure and significance of microbial communities associated to ticks in different ecosystems.


Knowledge about a company's supply chain provides an edge for investors. In this article, the authors propose a new trading approach in which a company's stock is purchased only if its main customer's quarterly sales evolve favorably. This method yields backtested annual returns in excess of 8.7% to the market return, net of real world transaction costs for a stock portfolio built on supply chain considerations. This portfolio is practically uncorrelated with the market, and the abnormal return is robust for risk adjustment. The method is applicable at least to U.S.-listed small- and mid-cap product-manufacturing companies with a strong dependency on their main customer company. According to the authors, a review of past publications could not identify research applying a similar method, thereby confirming the novelty of this fundamental facts-based approach.


Mechanism of crack propagation is done by loading the cycle against the perforated metal material will be difficult to avoid, to fatigue crack growth rate can be a way to expand its peg with the hole that normally uses metal balls as an alternative. By using a materials testing machine type cantilever bending eccentric crank, life time of the materials are determined. Research using the method of cold expansion hole in the aluminum alloy metal material to a hole with a diameter of 5 mm in expansion using pin with variation of  5,1 mm,  5,15 mm and  5,2 mm made that crack found on the side of the hole would be difficult to propagate due to residual stress comparison. The result shows that there are residual stresses around the hole which varies depending on the diameter of the pin. In addition, there is growing tensile residual stress within a certain distance of the specimen being tested resulted in a faster growth rate, this causes the material usage time will be shorter. Keywords: cold expansion hole, materials testing machine, aluminumalloy, comparison residual stress, life time.


There are several ways how saccharides interact with proteins. The role of dispersion-driven CH-pi interactions in protein-carbohydrate interactions has been underestimated for a long time. This type of interaction occurs between carbohydrate apolar faces and aromatic amino-acid residues. We introduce first systematic study of CH-pi interactions between selected carbohydrates and aromatic amino-acid models: benzene and naphtalene. 3D interaction energy (Eint) scan was performed to elucidate interaction energy maps for carbohydrate-benzene interaction. Resulting most stable complexes were reoptimized and their Eint were refined at highly-sophisticated level. To study possible degree of additivity, we used geometries of carbohydrate-benzene complexes to build-up monodentate (interaction with one CH-group) and bidentate (interaction with two CH-groups) carbohydrate-naphtalene complexes. Also these complexes underwent the optimization and energy refinement procedure as described. Results show Eint in carbohydrate-benzene complex up to -5,40 kcal/mol, which corresponds to medium-strong hydrogen bond. We localized most attractive regions where the Eint is highest – the strongest interaction is localized above and under CH-groups of carbohydrate. Additionally, benzene can recognize the specific hydrogens of carbohydrate in specific ideal distance (|(C)H-pi| distance around 2,3 A). The aromatic ring is coplanar with the carbohydrate cycle. Localization of the strongest interaction regions for carbohydrate-benzene complex lead us to idea about possible additivity of the CH-pi interaction. Therefore, Eint of bidentate carbohydrate-napthalene complexes were analyzed. The hypothesis of total additivity of the interaction was not confirmed. However, the Eint exhibits certain degree of additivity. The Eint of bidentate complex (ranging up to -8,20 kcal/mol) forms 2/3 of sum of Eint of monodentate ones and 4/5 of sum of Eint of carbohydrate-benzene complexes.


Waveguide photodetectors are considered leading candidates to overcome the bandwidth efficiency tradeoff of conventional photodetectors. In this paper, a theoretical physics-based model of the waveguide separated absorption charge multiplication avalanche photodetector (WG-SACM-APD) is presented. Both time and frequency modeling for this photodetector are developed and simulated results for different thicknesses of the absorption and multiplication layers and for different areas of the photodetector are presented. These simulations provide guidelines for the design of these high-performance photodiodes. In addition, a circuit model of the photodetector is presented in which the photodetector is a lumped circuit element so that circuit simulation of the entire photoreceiver is now feasible. The parasitics of the photodetector are included in the circuit model and it is shown how these parasitics degrade the photodetectors performance and how they can be partially compensated by an external inductor in series with the load resistor. The results obtained from the circuit model of the WG-SACM-APD are compared with published experimental results and good agreement is obtained. This circuit modeling can easily be applied to any WG-APD structure. The gain-bandwidth characteristic of WG-SACM-APD is studied for different areas and thicknesses of both the absorption and the multiplication layers. The dependence of the performance of the photodetector on the dimensions, the material parameters and the multiplication gain are also investigated.


The addition of O-H and N-H bonds across carbon-carbon double bonds offers a direct way of synthesising a variety of organic molecules. These reactions have attracted considerable interest in academic research and the chemical/pharmaceutical industry in recent years due to its atom economy. Nevertheless, there remains a considerably challenge to control the regioselectivity and the stereoselectivity of this reaction. This PhD thesis describes the investigation into the discovery and development of a general method for catalytic hydroamination (HA), hydroalkoxylation and hydrooxyacylation of olefins. Airand moisture-stable transition metal catalysts were the main focus of this study. The introductory Chapter provides an overview of recent advances in N-H addition reactions involving late transition metal catalysts. In Chapter 2, rhodium and ruthenium complexes were examined as catalysts for the addition of N-H bonds to alkenes. The combination of (RuCl2)n/dppb/AgOTf generated a catalyst effective for the addition of methyl carbamate to norbornene in a modest yield. Copper (II) trifluoromethanesulfonate was discovered to be an efficient catalyst for the addition of carboxylic acids, phenols and alcohols to norbornene. A selection of norbornyl esters and ethers were formed in good to excellent yields. In the following Chapter, the combination of copper (II) trifluoromethanesulfonate and diphosphine ligands was successfully applied to the addition of sulfonamides and carbamates to vinylarenes, 1,3-dienes and norbornene in good to excellent yields. In Chapter 4, the intramolecular hydroamination reaction was developed. The synthesis of several acyclic precursors were described, along with attempts to cyclise them. The chapter ends with the attempted synthesis of tricyclic molecules using a palladium-catalysed methodology. The last Chapter contains experimental procedures and characterisation data of all the compounds synthesised during the course of this project.


Globally, the environment is under pressure from climatic variability and anthropogenic activities including deforestation, wetland and water catchment destruction, agro-chemicals use and urbanization among others. The foregoing partly results from inappropriate information, ignorance, weak regulatory institutions and poverty, whose crosspollination exacerbates the fragility of the environment, threatening flora and fauna. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the need to establish the themes of environmental education integrated in the school curriculum, establish the strategies used to teach themes of environmental education in the school curriculum. This study adopted a descriptive survey design. The findings of the study revealed that the themes on environmental education were incorporated in the following subjects: geography, languages and religious education. The strategies used to teach environmental education included; lecture, field trips, discussions and guest speakers. It was therefore, concluded that the curriculum implementers should give more emphasis on themes of environmental education as a method of enhancing good management of the environment in Kenya.


We introduce the Street Performer Protocol, an electronic-commerce mechanism to facilitate the private financing of public works. Using this protocol, people would place donations in escrow, to be released to an author in the event that the promised work be put in the public domain. This protocol has the potential to fund alternative or "marginal" works.


Chordomas are the most common sacrococcygeal tumors in adults. They have a high recurrence rate, are locally aggressive, and are resistant to radiation therapy. Radio frequency is a relatively new therapeutic technique, used primarily in the treatment of liver tumors; however, its application has widened to include other neoplasms. We report its use in the palliative treatment of chordomas in two patients for debulking and control of pain, with good results and low morbidity.


In our research we examined two groups of students specialised in human resources studying at University of Győr. We analysed the self-reflective communication developmental plans of 32 students (group 1) because we wanted to learn which communication needs they could identify and are ready to overcome. We also looked at the emotional intelligence of 44 students (group 2) drawing on Bar-On's model which focuses on the harmony of intrapsychic and interpsychic skills. After comparing the two areas we could identify relations between the selfreflective description of communication and empathy, self-esteem, adaptability and handling stress and emotions. There are also links with age-related characteristics, and it points at the importance of learning through life experience while becoming an effective consultant.


Xuebijing injection (XBJI) (comprising of five herbs) is a widely used traditional Chinese medicine for sepsis treatment. However, the bioactive components of XBJI and the mechanisms responsible for its sepsis-mitigating action have not been experimentally determined. One of the main bioactive compounds in XBJI—benzoylpaeoniflorin (BPF)—inhibits the expressions of key mediators of inflammation such as nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB), cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1), and COX-2. However, its effects on sepsis have not been determined yet. Therefore, here, we investigated the immunomodulatory effect of BPF on severely inflamed endothelial cells, THP-1 macrophages, peritoneal macrophages, and mice. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and THP-1-macrophages were activated using lipopolysaccharide (LPS) after pretreatment with BPF. Subsequently, changes in the expression profiles of pro-inflammatory molecules including inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and interleukin (IL)-6 were determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and Western blot analysis. Furthermore, we monitored the phosphorylation of NF-kB and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) to determine their activation levels. Using the LPS-induced mouse model of sepsis, we studied the effects of BPF on inflammatory cytokine production, pulmonary histopathology, and survival rates. Finally, we evaluated whether BPF protects against cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)-induced sepsis, as it closely mimics human sepsis. BPF pretreatment inhibited LPS-induced increase in mRNA and protein levels of iNOS, TNF-α, and IL-6 in HUVECs and THP-1-macrophages. It also suppressed LPS-mediated phosphorylation of p65, p38, JNK, and ERK. Mice with LPS-induced-sepsis who were treated with BPF had lower serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β, CXCL1, and CXCL2 than the control mice treated with BPF. Histopathology revealed that BPF treatment alleviated LPS-induced lung damage. In addition, in mice given a lethal dose of LPS, BPF treatment showed a dose-dependent improvement in survival rates. BPF treatment dose-dependently inhibited the LPS-induced IL-6, TNF-α, and CXCL1 production in peritoneal macrophages. BPF treatment also dose-dependently improved the survival rates in mice with CLP-induced sepsis. These results show that BPF alleviates LPS-stimulated septic conditions and protects mice from CLP-induced sepsis. Our research marks BPF as a potential drug in the treatment of sepsis and various inflammatory diseases.


This article discusses the challenges of teaching English listening comprehension to law students and how to overcome them. Law students face some language challenges due to the nature of the English language. That is, students in the early stages of learning are the first to experience the ability to listen and understand. Therefore, it is worth considering the learning difficulties that may arise from the nature of the English language in terms of listening skills. In this article, we want to look at the most common, basic difficulties in listening to and understanding English speech. Although getting acquainted with the difficulties of listening to a speech can increase your preparedness for the confusion and misunderstandings that can occur in the learning process, we would like to draw your attention to the following difficulties mentioned by most law students.


Examining occupant's household energy use is a crucial step in achieving significant reductions in energy consumption. The purpose of this thesis is to collect information on ownership of appliances and electronics to evaluate their use, energy consumption, and behaviour with respect to energy in a Toronto high-rise multi-unit residential building (MURB). In this thesis, a survey was developed and implemented in a Toronto high-rise MURB. The survey data, energy consumption data from October 2010 to September 2012, and weather conditions were analyzed and used to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) model.

The detailed analysis of survey data resulted in the development of relationships between occupant's demographics and energy consumption. By creating an ANN model, results showed that the implementation of the survey may have reduced occupant's energy consumption in the high-rise MURB.


Lockwood shaly loam (Pachic Argixerolls) and similar Cd mineralized soils derived from marine shale in California contain higher Cd levels and higher Cd:Zn ratios than uncontaminated US soils, and produce leafy vegetables with considerably higher Cd than is normal for US lettuce. Previous work by Burau et al. suggested that, in contrast with geogenic Zn+Cd enriched soils, liming the Cd-mineralized soils did not effectively reduce crop Cd concentration. Our previous studies found for high Cd:Zn soils, liming may not reduce crop Cd but liming plus Zn fertilizer can strongly reduce crop Cd. Greenhouse pot trials were undertaken with addition of 0-500 mg Zn kg-1 to Lockwood soil (5.3 mg Cd and 54 mg Zn kg-1). All pots were made calcareous with reagent CaCO3 (harvest pHW 7.8), or adjusted to a range of pH without Zn fertilizer. The zero Zn calcareous treatment produced lettuce with 13.2 mg Cd kg-1 DW and only 10.5 mg Zn kg 1 DW; adding 100 mg Zn kg-1 soil produced lettuce containing 2.53 mg Cd kg-1 and 35 mg Zn kg-1; adding 250 mg Zn kg-1, 6.3 mg Cd kg-1 lettuce; and 500 mg Zn kg-1, 3.9 mg Cd kg-1 lettuce. For the 0 Zn treatment, acidification or liming increased lettuce Cd. The key finding is that if Zn is added to raise Cd:Zn ratio, liming these soils can be highly effective in reducing lettuce Cd, much like found for other Cd+Zn enriched soils.


A growing body of research proves that expanding the response to HIV stigma will increase the effectiveness of HIV programming overall but the response to HIV stigma and discrimination remains relatively small-scale. This working paper produced by ICRW and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzes the factors that encourage an expanded stigma response as well as the barriers that prevent scale-up of these programs. The conclusions of this analysis provide strategic direction for expanding the response to HIV stigma and discrimination.


Seebeck effect is widely used for the energy harvesting from wasted heat. In the Seebeck effect, the electric power can be generated by the temperature difference between both ends of the thermoelectric materials. However, low conversion efficiency is caused by heat flux from hot side to cold side of sample. In this paper, we have proposed a new thermal power generation mechanism with no temperature difference. We investigated the band structure of Ba_8Au_xSi_46-x clathrate single crystal synthesized by Czochralski method. The single crystal has a gradient of the gold contents along the growth direction. According to the results of Seebeck coefficient, the electrical properties of the Ba_8Au_xSi_46-x clathrate dramatically changed depending on the gold contents. In the case of gold content of lower than 5.33, the Ba_8Au_xSi_46-x clathrate showed a n-type semiconductor. In the case of gold content of higher than 5.33, the Ba_8Au_xSi_46-x clathrate showed a p- type semiconductor. The band gap of the n- type and p- type Ba_8Au_xSi_46-x clathrate were wider than the intrinsic semiconductor. We can successfully synthesize a n-p junction single crystal, which obtaining energy band curve generated from the difference of Fermi level between p- and n- type semiconductors. The single crystal was heated under the uniform temperature and able to obtain generated electric voltage of around 0.6 mV at 400°C. These results suggested that the obtained electric voltage can be generated from the separation of hole-electron pair excited by heating at the intrinsic part with a narrow band gap along to the energy band curve formed by p-n junction.


We present here a structure with just a single slit covering the planar anisotropic metamaterial. The metamaterial has hyperbolic dispersion and can be realized using metal-dielectric multilayers. The structure combines the focusing performance of the zone plates and subwavelength resolution of the anisotropic metamaterials so that subwavelength focal spots can be obtained at the focal plane. The relationship between the focal spot size and slit width has been investigated, and a resolution of 36 nm about 1/10 of 365 nm incident wavelength is obtained with a 100 nm wide single slit.


The 'religious right' came to prominence in the US during the late 1970s by campaigning on 'social issues' and encouraging many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians to get involved in politics. However, the fact that it clashed with 'born again' President Jimmy Carter over tax breaks for religious schools believed to be discriminatory, together with its illiberal stances on many issues, meant that it was characterized as an extremist movement. I argue that this assessment is oversimplified. First, many Christian schools were not racially discriminatory, and their defenders resented being labelled as racists. Secondly, few historians have recognized that the Christians involved in the religious right were among the most secularized of their kind. The religious right was often mistakenly categorized alongside earlier American Christian political movements that had displayed extremist and anti-democratic tendencies. The Carter administration's records and oft-ignored religious right ephemeral literature partly substantiate the movement's contention that it was defensive rather than theocratic in nature. One of my conclusions is that more attention must be paid to the subtle nuances of the political and theological views of religious right leaders, because the confusion surrounding the religious right is partly a function of its leaders harbouring internally inconsistent views.


Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics Steven J. Ross, Oxford University Press, 2013. 500 pages, $21.95 paper.A common assumption in American politics is that the nation's film capital is the bastion of liberalism, but in Hollywood Left and Right, Steven J. Ross, Professor of History at the University of Southern California, challenges this conventional wisdom. Basing his conclusions upon detailed archival research into the political and film careers of ten Hollywood activists, Ross argues that while a majority in the film community may identify with liberal causes, conservatives have enjoyed far more success when it comes to electoral politics. To depict the liberal legacy in Hollywood Ross has selected Charlie Chaplin, Edward G. Robinson, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, and Warren Beatty, while the conservative wing of the film community is represented by Louis B. Mayer, George Murphy, Charlton Heston, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, of course, Ronald Reagan. The result is a remarkably well balanced and written book that challenges popular assumptions about the role of the film industry in American life and politics.Ross cites Charlie Chaplin as the first political movie star, noting that his sympathy for radical causes originated in his own impoverished background. Chaplin was often critical of capitalism in his films and public comments, but Ross asserts that he was certainly never a communist. Yet, Chaplin's influence began to wane, according to Ross, when The Great Dictator (1940) seemed to call for intervention in Europe ahead of public opinion. Ross concludes that in the post-World War II period Chaplin's films, such as Monsieur Verdoux (1947), failed at the box office and were viewed as little more than left-wing propaganda. The Red Scare and sex scandals with younger women led to Chaplin's exile from Hollywood. The communist issue also derailed Edward G. Robinson's film career. Ross describes Robinson as a liberal in the 1930s and 1940s, who was interested in issue-oriented politics such as antifascism, support for European Jews, and aid to America's Russian allies during the Second World War. But the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) accused Robinson of being a Communist, and he was blacklisted by the film industry. A humiliated Robinson confessed to being duped by Communists disguising their activities through Popular Front organizations. The aging actor, however, was unable to resurrect his career. Ross writes, "Robinson's story reveals how a diverse array of conservatives brought a temporary halt to the emergence of Hollywood as a powerful progressive force in American politics" (91).In the wake of the HUAC hearings, blacklisting, and fate of the Hollywood Ten, conservatism dominated Hollywood in the 1950s, but issues such as the Civil Rights Movement and opposition to the Vietnam War brought renewed activism by the left during the turbulent 1960s. Ross describes Harry Belafonte and Jane Fonda as representative of what the author terms as movement politics. Influenced by Paul Robeson, Belafonte used his film and singing career to promote the cause of racial equality. Eventually despairing of Hollywood's efforts to move beyond racial stereotypes, Belafonte abandoned film and committed to the Civil Rights Movement as a coalition builder, fundraiser, and confidant to Martin Luther King Jr. Ross concludes that Belafonte "wound up devoting his life to doing something he often found burdensome, but felt compelled to do" (187). While some discount Jane Fonda's political commitment, Ross insists that the actress made important contributions to the antiwar movement and the struggle for economic democracy through her political activism. Ross observes that Fonda was naive to pose for a photograph atop a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, but her journey to Hanoi did put pressure on the Nixon administration to cease bombing the North Vietnamese dike system. Fonda is also credited, along with husband Tom Hayden, with forming the Campaign for Economic Democracy, championing feminism, and producing popular political films such as Coming Home (1978) and The China Syndrome (1979), which proved activism did not have to destroy one's career in cinema. …


Studies of high energy proton interactions have been basic inputs to understand the cosmic-ray spectra observed on the earth. Yet, the experimental knowledge with controlled beams has been limited. In fact, uncertainties of the forward hadron production are very large due to the lack of experimental data. The FASER experiment is proposed to measure particles, such as neutrinos and hypothetical dark-sector particles, at the forward location of the 14 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC. As it corresponds to 100-PeV proton interactions in fixed target mode, a precise measurement by FASER would provide information relevant for PeV-scale cosmic rays. By studying three flavor neutrinos with the dedicated neutrino detector (FASERa), FASER will lead to a quantitative understanding of prompt neutrinos, which is an important background towards the astrophysical neutrino observation by neutrino telescopes such as IceCube. In particular, the electron and tau neutrinos have strong links with charmed hadron production. And, the FASER measurements may also shed light on the unresolved muon puzzle at the high energy. FASER is going to start taking data in 2022. We expect about 8000 numu, 1300 nue and 20 nutau CC interactions at the TeV energy scale during Run 3 of the LHC operation (2022-2024) with a 1.1 tons emulsion-based neutrino detector. We report here the overview and prospect of the FASER experiment in relation to the cosmic-ray physics, together with the first LHC neutrino candidates that we caught in the pilot run held in 2018.


Maize MON 87460 was developed through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and expresses the cold shock protein B (CspB) from Bacillus subtilis and neomycin phosphotransferase II (NPTII) from Escherichia coli to reduce yield loss under water-limited conditions. Maize MON 87460 contains a single copy of the cspB and nptII expression cassettes. Bioinformatic analysis of the flanking sequences and the open reading frames spanning the junctions created by the transformation did not raise safety issues. Comparative analyses established that, besides the expression of the CspB and NPTII proteins, some differences were observed in the composition of forage and grain produced from maize MON 87460 compared with its conventional counterpart, when grown under well-watered conditions. Given the magnitude of these changes and the characteristics of these endpoints, the EFSA GMO Panel concluded that the observed differences do not raise safety concerns for humans and animals. Under stressful conditions, maize MON 87460 can show enhanced agronomic performance characteristics and some differences in chemical composition in comparison with its conventional counterpart. Given the intended trait, the observed differences were not unexpected, and did indicate no safety concerns. The safety assessment identified no concerns regarding the potential toxicity and allergenicity of the CspB and NPTII proteins, or of maize MON 87460. Maize MON 87460 is as nutritious as any other maize and can be used in the same way. In cases of spillage, there are no indications of increased likelihood of the establishment or survival of feral maize plants MON 87460. Risks associated with a theoretically possible horizontal gene transfer from maize MON 87460 to bacteria have been analysed in detail, including different scenarios of integration, and did not raise safety concerns for the intended uses of maize MON 87460. The post-market environmental monitoring plan and reporting intervals are in line with the intended uses of maize MON 87460.


In a paradigm for which 2 distinct patterns are perceived for the same stimulus, perceptual hysteresis (persistence of a percept despite parameter change to values favoring the alternative pattern) and temporal stability (persistence despite intrinsic propensities toward spontaneous change) are interdependent. Greater persistence during parameter change reduces temporal stability, slowing the rate of parameter change reduces hysteresis by increasing opportunity for spontaneous change, and increasing temporal stability (by enlarging the stimulus) increases hysteresis. Hysteresis results in the perception of parametrically disfavored patterns; a parameter can influence a percept without specifying it. The visual system thus exhibits time-dependent behavior analogous to dynamical behavior observed in other systems, both physical and biological, for which there is competition among alternative patterns that vary in relative stability. Language: en


Objective: The present study investigated the role of mental skills in surgery through the unique lens of current surgeons who had previously served as Olympic athletes, elite musicians, or expert military personnel. Background: Recent work has demonstrated great potential for mental skills training in surgery. However, as a field, we lag far behind other high-performance domains that explicitly train and practice mental skills to promote optimal performance. Surgery stands to benefit from this work. First, there is a need to identify which mental skills might be most useful in surgery and how they might be best employed. Methods: Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 surgeons across the United States and Canada who had previously performed at an elite level in sport, music, or the military. Results: Mental skills were used both to optimize performance in the moment and longitudinally. In the moment, skills were used proactively to enter an ideal performance state, and responsively to address unwanted thoughts or emotions to re-enter an acceptable performance zone. Longitudinally, participants used skills to build expertise and maintain wellness. Conclusions: Establishing a taxonomy for mental skills in surgery may help in the development of robust mental skills training programs to promote optimal surgeon wellness and performance.


Marketing specialists are realizing the need to perfect themselves in using online marketing as a priority method to promote their businesses and an ever growing number of young people that are graduating a university wish to start their own business or market one and understand that having a good grasp of digital marketing and how to use it in promoting and selling the company's products and services is essential in succeeding. Although online marketing distinguishes itself as a priority in developing and maintaining a business nowadays, the training offer for digital marketing is very weak.
Digital Marketing Institute is a leader in Digital Marketing Education from Dublin, internationally accredited to deliver Digital Marketing training and e-training programs for corporations, also present in Romania since 2013.
The program is structured in 10 relevant modules (delivered through videos, webinars and interactive e-workshops): Introduction to Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Email marketing, Display Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Web Analytics, Digital Marketing Campaign Planning and is delivered via the Moodle e-learning system. The modules are in video format, webinars and interactive e-workshops, presented by a trainer with expertise in their field. Chat sessions, forum discussions in the Moodle platform are regularly organized between trainers and participants in order to clarify any issues and give practical subject matter advice. The relevancy and utility of the information for attendants depends both on the curriculum as well as the human resources involved in delivering these modules.

The present paper aims to identify the way in which the human resources involved in delivering these modules (the online marketing e-trainers) produce new and real digital marketing competences in adults that either choose to convert professionally at the end of their career in a certain field or are young adults aspiring to be entrepreneurs and online marketers.

We are assessing the degree of satisfaction of participants in regards to how the e-trainers delivered, judging on criteria such as: Presentation skills, Involvement, Availability (for questions, discussions in the chats, forums and webinars), Professionalism and knowledge level in the field, the trainer's expertise in the field they are teaching.

As research methods we have used document analysis and the survey-based research. The target group is formed of 100 adults with ages 24-46. Data evaluation was realized with the help of IBM SPSS, the results having indicated an optimal degree of satisfaction regarding the trainers' delivery of this course and they are very useful for the future improvement of e-teaching methods.


There is increased interest in the potential of tree planting to help mitigate flooding using nature‐based solutions or natural flood management. However, many publications based upon catchment studies conclude that, as flood magnitude increases, benefit from forest cover declines and is insignificant for extreme flood events. These conclusions conflict with estimates of evaporation loss from forest plot observations of gross rainfall, through fall and stem flow. This study explores data from existing studies to assess the magnitudes of evaporation and attempts to identify the meteorological conditions under which they would be supported. This is achieved using rainfall event data collated from publications and data archives from studies undertaken in temperate environments around the world. The meteorological conditions required to drive the observed evaporation losses are explored theoretically using the Penman–Monteith equation. The results of this theoretical analysis are compared with the prevailing meteorological conditions during large and extreme rainfall events in mountainous regions of the United Kingdom to assess the likely significance of wet canopy evaporation loss. The collated dataset showed that event Ewc losses between approximately 2 and 38% of gross rainfall (1.5 to 39.4 mm day−1) have been observed during large rainfall events (up to 118 mm day−1) and that there are few data for extreme events (>150 mm day−1). Event data greater than 150 mm (reported separately) included similarly high percentage evaporation losses. Theoretical estimates of wet‐canopy evaporation indicated that, to reproduce the losses towards the high end of these observations, relative humidity and the aerodynamic resistance for vapour transport needed to be lower than approximately 97.5% and 0.5 to 2 s m−1 respectively. Surface meteorological data during large and extreme rainfall events in the United Kingdom suggest that conditions favourable for high wet‐canopy evaporation are not uncommon and indicate that significant evaporation losses during large and extreme events are possible but not for all events and not at all locations. Thus the disparity with the results from catchment studies remains.


Regional communities in Queensland, Australia are the life-blood of the state; contributing more than 80% of exports goods and services, as well as about 16 billion dollars each year to the state's economy. Weather-related disasters such as floods have become more frequent over the last fifty years in those communities. Between December 2010 and January 2011, three-quarters of the state was declared as disaster zone as a result of flooding. At least seventy towns and over 200,000 people were affected by these floods. The Fitzroy Basin is the largest coastal catchment in Queensland and the second largest catchment in Australia; and the most towns in this basin have been affected by this flood. This study examined the vulnerability of the housing market through a case study of Rockhampton region within this basin by using longitudinal data of total house sales, new house and land package sales, land sales before and after the 2011 flood and also tested the results with a key regional economic factor (mining development) whether the flood impact has been relieved by this factor. This study found that the flood has affected the total house sales compared to new house and land sales and land only sales; and also flood impact has relatively relieved by mining impact.


The rise of social media such as blogs and social networks works has fuelled interest in sentiment analysis. With the proliferation of reviews, ratings, recommendations and other forms of online expression, online opinion has turned into a kind of virtual currency for businesses looking to market their products, identify new opportunities and manage their reputations; therefore many are now looking to the field of sentiment analysis. In this paper, we present a feature-based sentence level approach for Arabic sentiment analysis. Our approach is using Arabic idioms/saying phrases lexicon as a key importance for improving the detection of the sentiment polarity in Arabic sentences as well as a number of novels and rich set of linguistically motivated features (contextual Intensifiers, contextual Shifter and negation handling), syntactic features for conflicting phrases which enhance the sentiment classification accuracy. Furthermore, we introduce an automatic expandable wide coverage polarity lexicon of Arabic sentiment Words. The lexicon is built with gold-standard sentiment words as a seed which is manually collected and Annotated and it expands and detects the sentiment orientation automatically of new sentiment words using synset aggregation technique and free online Arabic lexicons and thesauruses. Our data focus on modern standard Arabic (MSA) and Egyptian dialectal Arabic tweets and micro blogs (hotel reservation, product reviews, etc.). The experimental results using our resources and techniques with SVM classifier indicate high performance levels, with accuracies of over 95%.


Empathy is fundamental for interpersonal relationships, and therapy. There is some theoretical dissensus about its underlying process. This study investigated the lived experience of understanding another person through an innovative combination of qualitative methods. The design involved making video recordings of interpersonal interactions between pairs of volunteers. The recordings were then used for a same-day cued-recall interview. During the interview, both volunteers were asked to discuss their interaction experiences. Four in-depth case studies, involving eight participants, were conducted using this technique. The interviews were then subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The results illuminate the multi-dimensional characteristics of interpersonal understanding. Namely, understanding another person was experienced as a phenomenon with three main aspects to it: 1) intuitive; 2) shared/sympathetic; and 3) imaginative/intellectual. Interestingly, shared/sympathetic and imaginative/intellectual understandings were more strongly connected with insights accessed via verbal communication, and with more self-based understandings. On the other hand, intuitive understandings were typically linked to the nonverbal communication domain, and with more other-based, intersubjective or pre-reflective forms of understanding. We argue that intuitive understandings have been under-represented in the empathy literature, and should be acknowledged as an important experiential component of this phenomenon, to be distinguished from intellectual and sympathetic understandings.


On 2006 May 5, a 4 s duration, low-energy, ~1049 erg, gamma-ray burst (GRB) was observed, spatially associated with a z = 0.0894 galaxy. Here we report the discovery of the GRB optical afterglow and observations of its environment using Gemini South, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Chandra, Swift, and the Very Large Array. The optical afterglow of this GRB is spatially associated with a prominent star-forming region in the Sc-type galaxy 2dFGRS S173Z112. Its proximity to a star-forming region suggests that the progenitor delay time, from birth to explosion, is smaller than ~10 Myr. Our HST deep imaging rules out the presence of a supernova brighter than an absolute magnitude of about -11 (or -12.6 in the case of maximal extinction) at about 2 weeks after the burst and limits the ejected mass of radioactive 56Ni to be less than about 2 × 10-4 M☉ (assuming no extinction). Although it was suggested that GRB 060505 may belong to a new class of long-duration GRBs with no supernova, we argue that the simplest interpretation is that the physical mechanism responsible for this burst is the same as that for short-duration GRBs.


SETTING: Breast tuberculosis (TB) is rare even in endemic areas. Its presentation is variable and non-specific, and its diagnosis is therefore usually delayed. DESIGN: We recruited breast TB cases between 1998 and June 2009 at Kaohsiung Medical Center in southern Taiwan. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical features, diagnosis and management of breast TB. RESULTS: A total of 26 patients with breast TB (25 females) were included in this study. The most common presentation was breast tumour, followed by breast abscess and painful sensation. Patients received partial mastectomy or incision and drainage. The pathological examination revealed granulomatous inflammation, acute and chronic inflammation or both. Polymerase chain reaction has very low sensitivity in diagnosing breast TB. The interval between initial presentation and definite treatment was an average of 54.5 days. All patients received anti-tuberculosis chemotherapy, with excellent response. CONCLUSION: The presentation of breast TB is variable and diagnosis is usually delayed. The disease can be diagnosed through pathological tests and a high suspicion by experienced physicians. The definite treatment is adequate anti-tuberculosis chemotherapy after surgical excision or drainage.


This thesis work present deformable template matching with dynamic programming for foot tracking in smart phones. This report discusses how edge image of foot can be used as line template which is then allowed to deform up to 30 percent to match feet of variable sizes. The optimal solution is calculated using dynamic programming. The limitation of computing resources is main problem in performing image processing in smart phones. This approach tracks foot in real time i.e 30 frames per second. Android smart phone piano and football application are developed and tested in different circumstances to check developed algorithm.


Two types of equivalent eccentric coaxial lines are described whose eccentricities vary with the ratio of inner and outer conductors, for a coaxial system consisting of circular and noncircular conductors. The equivalent lines can provide a smooth transition between extremes of a small wire and a wire near contact. The results obtained are simple analytical expressions for fast computation of the characteristic impedance or for the computer-aided design (CAD) of coaxial components. The accuracy of the expression is confirmed by comparison with accurate numerical data. >


The cII and cIII proteins specified by bacteriophage lambda direct the lysogenic response to infection through the coordinate establishment of repression and integration of the viral DNA. The regulatory activity of cII/cIII involves positive regulation of two promoter sites: the p(E) promoter, turning on expression of the cI protein that maintains lysogeny, and the p(I) promoter, activating synthesis of the Int protein for integrative recombination. Regulation of the p(I) promoter provides for differential expression of the Int protein with respect to the excision-specific Xis protein from the closely linked int and xis genes. We have determined the DNA sequence of the p(I) promoter region for wild-type lambda DNA and for two classes of mutations: intc mutations, which result in a high rate of Int synthesis in the absence of cII, and deletion mutations, some of which eliminate cII-activated expression of the int gene. We find a sequence with considerable homology (11 of 15 bases) to a "typical" (computer-generated) promoter sequence, adjacent to a region with striking homology (11 of 14 bases) to part of the p(E) promoter region. This presumed p(I) sequence overlaps the start of the xis gene and includes the site of two intc point mutations. A cII-insensitive xis(+) deletion partially removes the proposed p(I) sequence; a deletion that leaves the p(I) sequence intact but terminates 21 bases upstream does not interfere with cII activation of the int gene. From our results and the analysis of the p(E) region, we suggest that cII acts in the promoter -35 recognition region to facilitate binding by RNA polymerase at the -10 interaction region. Differential expression of the int and xis genes results because the p(I) transcript lacks the initiation codon for Xis protein synthesis.


Filamentous cytoplasmic inclusions are hallmarks of Alzheimer disease (AD) and Pick disease (PD). Although previous studies show elevated zinc (Zn) in AD brain, there has been little study of zinc transporter (ZnT) proteins that are critical in the maintenance of Zn homeostasis. Using Western blot analysis, we show significantly elevated ZnT-6, the protein responsible for sequestration of Zn in the trans-Golgi network, in the hippocampus/parahippocampal gyrus (HPG) of AD subjects compared to age-matched controls and a trend toward elevated ZnT-6 in subjects with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Based on these data, we used immunohistochemistry to investigate the cellular distribution of ZnT-6 in the HPG of control subjects and subjects with MCI, AD, and PD. Comparison of immediately adjacent serial sections stained using the modified Bielschowsky method and immunostained for ZnT-6 showed elevated ZnT-6 in 89 ± 7% of neurofibrillary tangle (NFT)-bearing neurons in AD and 100 ± 19% of Pick bodies in PD specimens. Confocal microscopy of HPG from MCI subjects double labeled for ZnT-6 and MC-1, a marker of early NFT formation, showed 85 ± 4% of MC-1-positive cells were strongly ZnT-6-positive. Increased ZnT-6 immunostaining in neurons containing cytoplasmic inclusions in MCI, AD, and PD suggests a role for ZnT-6 in the pathogenesis of these lesions.