RT-QuIC is a shaking-based cyclic amplification technique originally developed in the prion field to detect minute amounts of scrapie prion protein (PrPSc). In this study, we applied the RT-QuIC assay to investigate a-synuclein (a-syn) seeding activity in brains of Dementia with Lewy Body (DLB) patients and in brains of G2-3 transgenic mice expressing human a-syn with A53T mutation. The results show

Chronic wasting disease is a progressively fatal, horizontally transmissible prion disease affecting several members of the cervid species. Conventional diagnosis relies on ELISA or IHC evaluation using tissues collected post-mortem; however, recent research has focused on newly developed amplification techniques using samples collected antemortem. The present study sought to cross-validate the real-time

We previously discovered three carbazole derivatives, GJP14 (1-piperidinylmethyl-2-(1-oxo-6-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydrocarbazol-9-yl)-ethan-1-ol) with anti-prion activity, GJC29 (benzylamino-3-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydrocarbazol-9-yl)-propan-2-ol) with anti-cancer activity, and THC19 (1-piperidinylmethyl-2-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydrocarnazol-9-yl)-ethan-1-ol) with anti-influenza virus activity. During optimization of

Adult neurogenesis, analogous to early development, is comprised of several, often concomitant, processes including proliferation, differentiation, and formation of synaptic connections. However, due to continual, asynchronous turn-over, newly-born adult olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) must integrate into existing circuitry. Additionally, OSNs express high levels of cellular prion protein (PrPC),

Background The number of studies using joint modelling of longitudinal and survival data have increased in the past two decades, but analytical techniques and software shortcomings have remained. A joint model is often used for analysis of a combination of longitudinal sub-model and survival sub-model using shared random effects. Cox regression commonly referring to the survival sub-model, should not

Background and Objective : Early identification of melanoma is conducted through whole-body visual examinations to detect suspicious pigmented lesions, a situation that fluctuates in accuracy depending on the experience and time of the examiner. Computer-aided diagnosis tools for skin lesions are typically trained using pre-selected single-lesion images, taken under controlled conditions, which limits

Background and Objective: In this paper we propose to include an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) within a magnetic resonance (MR) simulator that has been developed in house. With this, we intend to measure the impact, in terms of user experience, of including an ITS in our simulator. Methods: We thoroughly describe the integration procedure and we have tested the benefits of this integration by means

The importance of the role of cephalopods in marine ecosystems and commercial fisheries has increased over recent years. There is now evidence that the distribution of cephalopods is expanding latitudinally. Nevertheless, information about the spatial distribution of cephalopods and its implications in the Yellow Sea (YS) is not well known. In an attempt to redress this deficiency, we firstly conducted

Introduction Patients with end-stage renal disease undergoing hemodialysis therapy are at risk of developing deficiencies of essential trace elements and/or overload of toxic trace elements, both of which may significantly affect their clinical status of. Those imbalances may result from the disease itself but also from the quality of the therapeutic process, namely the hemodialysis process, which

Background Selenium (Se) appears in the selenoproteins in the form of selenocysteine (Sec) and is important for the growth and development of vertebrates. The present study characterized seven selenoproteins, consisting of the GPX1, GPX3, GPX4, SELENOW, SELENOP, TXNRD2 and TXNRD3 cDNAs in various tissues of yellow catfish, explored their regulation to dietary Se addition. Methods 3′ and 5′ RACE PCR

Background and aim Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have an important role in plant-microbe interactions. But, there are few studies in which the combined effect of AMF with a stress factor, such as the presence of a metal, on plant species were assessed. This study investigated the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus Rhizophagus intraradices and other soil microbial groups in the presence

Background In this study, chromium (III) complex was synthesized from genistein (GEN) which had good hypoglycemic activity and inorganic chromium (III) element, and its hypoglycemic activity and sub-acute toxicity were studied. Methods The genistein-chromium (III) complex was synthesized by chelating chromium with genistein in ethanol and its structure was determined by LC-MS, atomic absorption spectroscopy

Background Trace elements (TE) in the human body provide a connecting link between the environment, lifestyle and biochemical modulation of homeodynamics. On the other hand, many non-essential (toxic) elements are linked to numerous diseases. Our study tried to identify differences in TE levels between healthy old and young Wistar rats in blood and the tissues of kidney, liver, heart, and testicles

While mothering is often instinctive and stereotyped in species-specific ways, evolution can favor genetically “open” behavior programs that allow experience to shape infant care. Among experience-dependent maternal behavioral mechanisms, sensory learning about infants has been hard to separate from motivational changes arising from sensitization with infants. We developed a paradigm in which sensory

Ischemic stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, so adequate prevention strategies are crucial. However, current stroke risk stratification is based on epidemiologic studies and is still suboptimal for individual patients. The aim of this systematic review was to provide a literature overview on the feasibility and diagnostic value of vascular shear wave elastography (SWE) using

We address the recent controversy over whether focused ultrasound (FUS) activates cortical neurons directly or indirectly by initially activating auditory pathways. We obtained two types of evidence that FUS can directly activate cortical neurons. The depth profile of the local field potential (LFP) in the barrel cortex of the rat in vivo indicated a generator was located within the cortical gray matter

Plasmodium parasites experience significant bottlenecks as they transit through the mosquito and are transmitted to their mammalian host. Oocyst prevalence on mosquito midguts and sporozoite prevalence in salivary glands are nevertheless commonly used to confirm successful malaria transmission, assuming that these are reliable indicators of the mosquito’s capacity to give rise to secondary infections

Overactivation of the classical arm of the renin-angiotensin (Ang) system (RAS) occurs during inflammation, oxidative stress and obesity-induced cardiomyopathy. The activation of the protective arm of RAS may act to counterbalance the deleterious effects of the classical RAS. Although aerobic exercise training (AET) shifts the balance of the RAS towards the protective arm, little is known about the

A Kene–Mele-type nearest-neighbor tight-binding model on a pyrochlore lattice is known to be a topological insulator in some parameter region. It is an important task to realize a topological insulator in a real compound, especially in an oxide that is stable in air. In this paper we systematically performed band structure calculations for six pyrochlore oxides A2B2O7 (A = Sn, Pb, Tl; B = Nb, Ta),

Symmetry can be understood in two different ways: as a property or as a principle. As Plato said, the symmetry that can be seen in nature is not random in itself, because it is a result of the symmetries of the physical laws. Thus, the principles of symmetry have been used to solve mechanical problems since antiquity. Today, these principles are still being researched; for example, in chemical engineering

Symmetry plays the central role in the structure of quantum states of bipartite (or many-body) fermionic systems. Typically, symmetry leads to the phenomenon of quantum coherence and correlations (entanglement) inherent to quantum systems only. In the present work, we study the role of symmetry (i.e., quantum correlations) in invasive quantum measurements. We consider the influence of a direct or indirect

We provide a comparison between two schemes for solving equations on Banach space. A comparison between same convergence order schemes has been given using numerical examples which can go in favor of either scheme. However, we do not know in advance and under the same set of conditions which scheme has the largest ball of convergence, tighter error bounds or best information on the location of the

Attractiveness is perceived based on both facial physical features and prior experience for adults. Infants also prefer attractive or familiar faces, but it is unclear whether facial physical features and prior experience affect their preference. In this study, we investigated whether infants’ preference for faces was shaped by both facial physical features and facial looking experience. This experiment

Plastic anisotropy is a common property of many metallic materials. This property affects many aspects of structural analysis and design. In contrast to the isotropic case, there is a great variety of yield criteria proposed for anisotropic materials. Moreover, even if one specific yield criterion is selected, several constitutive parameters are involved in it. Therefore, parametric analysis of structures

As it is well acknowledged that the electoral system is one of the fundamental rocks of our modern society, the behavior of electors engaged in a voting system is of the utmost importance. In this context, the goal of the study is to model the behavior of voters in a first-past-the-post system and to analyze its consequences on a party system. Among the assumptions of this study is Duverger’s law,

Magnetic drug targeting (MDT) is a noninvasive method for the medical treatment of various diseases of the cardiovascular system. Biocompatible magnetic nanoparticles loaded with medicinal drugs are carried to a tissue target in the human body (in vivo) under the applied magnetic field. The present study examines the MDT technique in various microchannels geometries by adopting the principles of biofluid

The famous Toms effect (1948) consists of a substantial increase of the critical Reynolds number when a small amount of soluble polymer is introduced into water. The most noticeable influence of polymer additives is manifested in the boundary layer near solid surfaces. The task includes the ratio of two characteristic length scales, one of which is the Prandtl scale, and the other is defined as the

The intention of this paper is mainly two-fold. First, we point out a striking numerical agreement between the bulk viscosity in the lepton era calculated by Husdal (2016) and our own calculations of the present-day bulk viscosity when the functional form is ζ ∼ ρ . From a phenomenological point of view, we thus seem to have an ansatz for the viscosity, which bridges the infancy of the Universe (∼1

Simultaneous utilization of surfactant and preformed particle gel (henceforth; PPG) flooding on the oil recovery enhancement has been widely investigated as a preferable enhanced oil recovery technique after the polymer flooding. In this paper, a numerical model is developed to simulate the profound impact of hybrid chemical enhanced oil recovery methods (PPG/polymer/surfactant) in sandstone reservoirs

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has imposed the need for a series of social distancing restrictions worldwide to mitigate the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. This applies to many domains, including airplane boarding and seat assignments. As airlines are considering their passengers’ safety during the pandemic, boarding methods should be evaluated both in terms of social distancing norms and the

This paper reports a numerical study on heat transfer improvement in a double backward-facing expanding channel using different convectional fluids. A finite volume method with the k-ε standard model is used to investigate the effects of step, Reynolds number and type of liquid on heat transfer enhancement. Three types of conventional fluids (water, ammonia liquid and ethylene glycol) with Reynolds

The first author has recently investigated a type of Hyers-Ulam stability of the one-dimensional time independent Schrödinger equation when the relevant system has a rectangular potential barrier of finite height. In the present paper, we will investigate a type of Hyers-Ulam stability of the Schrödinger equation with the symmetric parabolic wall potential.

The metric function generalizes the concept of distance between two points and hence includes the symmetric property. The aim of this article is to introduce a new and proper extension of Kannan’s fixed point theorem to the case of multivalued maps using Wardowski’s F-contraction. We show that our result is applicable to a class of mappings where neither the multivalued version of Kannan’s theorem

In this manuscript, we focus on the brief study of finding the solution to and analyzingthe homogeneous linear difference equation in a neutrosophic environment, i.e., we interpreted the solution of the homogeneous difference equation with initial information, coefficient and both as a neutrosophic number. The idea for solving and analyzing the above using the characterization theorem is demonstrated

One of the key performance requirements for different control systems is non-overshooting step response, so that the controllable value should not overcome the reference value within a transient process. The problem of providing a non-overshooting step response was examined in this paper. Despite much scientific research being dedicated to the overshoot elimination problem, there are little to no results

Solving equations in abstract spaces is important since many problems from diverse disciplines require it. The solutions of these equations cannot be obtained in a form closed. That difficulty forces us to develop ever improving iterative methods. In this paper we improve the applicability of such methods. Our technique is very general and can be used to expand the applicability of other methods. We

Transportation systems help in shaping an area’s economic health and quality of life, providing the infrastructure for the mobility of people and goods. Nevertheless, the negative externalities of car-oriented urban-metropolitan planning have heightened awareness for the need of urban planning approaches that incorporate sustainable mobility. Consequently, cities worldwide have increasingly produced

High-resolution light distributions are lately in demand for vehicle headlamp systems as an innovative lighting approach. This lighting approach can realize functionalities, such as precise glare avoidance and on-road projection, which are useful for improving traffic comfort and safety. For achieving the required high-resolution light distribution, area-based projection technologies, such as DMD,

This paper investigates an initial model for Zero Defect Manufacturing (ZDM) using a cost function where the operation and condition of a production process are reflected, and the quality of the output/product and the production process (as well as safety aspects) can be considered. The outset of the study is based on empirical data collected from five manufacturing companies, and proposes an initial

In this paper, we present a robust containment control design for multi Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (UAVs) based on the Data Distribution Service (DDS) middleware and L 1 adaptive controller. The Data Distribution Service middleware, L 1 adaptive controller and graph theory technique are utilized for the navigation of the UAVs. The L 1 controller is utilized as a local controller for each UAVs

The world has witnessed the success of artificial intelligence deployment for smart healthcare applications. Various studies have suggested that the prevalence of voice disorders in the general population is greater than 10%. An automatic diagnosis for voice disorders via machine learning algorithms is desired to reduce the cost and time needed for examination by doctors and speech‑language pathologists

The influence of copper addition (0.5–2 mol%) on the crystal structure, densification microstructure, and electrochemical properties of Ce0.8Gd0.2O1.9 synthesized in a one-step sol–gel combustion synthesis route has been studied. It has been found that Cu is very active as sintering aids, with a significative reduction of GDC firing temperature. A reduction of 500 °C with a small amount of copper (0

Post-disaster recovery is a complex process in terms of measuring its progress after a disaster and understanding its components and influencing factors. During this process, disaster planners and governments need reliable information to make decisions towards building the affected region back to normal (pre-disaster), or even improved, conditions. Hence, it is essential to use methods to understand

In practical operating conditions, the Solar-Photo Voltaic (SPV) system experiences multifarious irradiation and temperature levels, which generate power with multiple peaks. This is considered as the nonuniform operating condition (NUOC). This requires accurate tracking of global power peaks to achieve maximum power from SPV, which is a challenging task. Hence, this paper presents an incremental Conductance

Supercritical carbon dioxide has been used to deposit co-precipitates of natural antioxidants with a polymer onto silica microparticles. The supercritical antisolvent process (SAS) was carried out with the antioxidants by introducing the silica microparticles into the precipitator vessel. Two different configurations were employed to pump the solution. In one configuration, the antioxidant and the

Lost-wax casting, also called precision casting, is the process of casting a duplicate metal sculpture cast an original sculpture. The ceramic shell mould used in lost-wax casting usually consists of several layers formed with fine zircon and granular mullite particles using silica gel as a binder. However, it is a complicated and time-consuming process. Large amounts of waste moulds that need to be

The objective of this study was to evaluate the biomaterial properties of nano-modified surface acupuncture needles and the effect of such needles on human pain perception by using pressure pain threshold (PPT) measurements. It is known that changing a material’s surface nano-topography or nanostructure has strong effects on its physical, chemical, and biological surface properties. However, there

A logo is an effective way of expressing a brand’s identity and an essential element in conveying the values and image of the company. The development process of a competitive logo should be based on a design that is future-proof in a rapidly changing global market; hence, understanding the design trends for successful logo design is key. In this study, the design shape elements of logo trend models

Multi-expert multi-criterion decision-making problems are complicated decision issues. Different experts have different opinions with regard to multi-criterion decision-making problems, depending on their background and experience. These experts provide information that usually contains certain, uncertain, and incomplete information simultaneously. However, traditional computing methods only fully

Aggregate piers have been widely used to increase bearing pressure and reduce settlement under structural footings. The ultimate bearing capacity of aggregate pier-reinforced ground is affected by the soil strength, replacement ratio of piles, and construction conditions. Various prediction models have been proposed to predict the ultimate bearing capacity. However, existing models have shown a broad

Micropillar arrays with radial p–n junctions are attractive for photovoltaic applications, because the light absorption and carrier collection become decoupled. The main challenge in manufacturing radial p–n junctions is achieving shallow (dopant depth <200 nm) and heavy doping (>1020 cm−3) that will allow the formation of a quasi-neutral region (QNR) and space charge region (SCR) in its tiny geometry

The Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has been applied for the simulation of lid-driven flows inside cavities with internal two-dimensional circular obstacles of various diameters under Reynolds numbers ranging from 100 to 5000. With the LBM, a simplified square cross-sectional cavity was used and a single relaxation time model was employed to simulate complex fluid flow around the obstacles inside the

The discovery of the ionizing effect of strong electric fields in the order of volts per Ångstrom in the early 1950s eventually led to the development of field ionization-mass spectrometry (FI-MS). Due to the very low ion currents, and thus, limited by the instrumentation of the 1960s, it took some time for the, by then, new technique to become adopted for analytical applications. In FI-MS, volatile