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In this paper, aerodynamic optimization of the tangential stacking line of the NASA Rotor 37 as a transonic axial flow compressor rotor is carried out using computational fluid dynamics and genetic algorithm. To cover a wide range of curves with a minimum number of design parameters, a B-spline curve with three control points at 33, 66 and 100% of the blade span is used to define the blade stacking lines. Firstly, by rotating the tangential position of the control points, different rotors have been created and are simulated using the Navier–Stokes governing equations. Then, using genetic algorithm operators, based on the adiabatic efficiency as an objective function, new blades are created and numerically simulated. This process is repeated to achieve maximum adiabatic efficiency. The comparison of the optimum blade and the original blade indicates that optimal tangential stacking line causes the shock wave to move downstream and reduce the secondary flow which has led to an improvement of about 1.7% of the adiabatic efficiency.

The possibility of higher death rates after admission to hospital during the weekend has been intensively investigated in North America and Northern Europe, while data are almost absent from Southern Europe and other WHOV regions. Increased death rates have not been uniformly confirmed. Differences in hospital care on weekends can vary depending on the reason for hospital admission, place and time. The aim was to verify whether weekend admission from the emergency department to internal medicine services is associated with parameters of operational efficiency in a Northern Italian hospital. A retrospective analysis was performed using hospital administration data of 3,594 admissions in 2016. A total of 287 patients (8.0%) had intensive care unit/IMCU transfers and 218 patients (6.1%) deceased in the hospital. Patients admitted on the weekend were similar to patients admitted during the week across age and gender, while weekend patients were more likely to be admitted on a "bad" day, defined as a day with a median number of admitted patients per day of10 during the week and9 on weekend. When adjusting for age and gender, patients admitted on weekend had significantly shorter length of stay compared to patients admitted during the week. In conclusion, emergency weekend admission to an internal medicine service was not associated with worse hospitalization-relevant outcomes in a regional hospital in Italy. Lower length-of-stay when emergency admission was on weekend is suggestive of lower disease severity of patients admitted to internal medicine services than on weekdays. If this represents higher risk of inappropriate hospital admission on weekends requires further study.

The durability of resistance against diseases is one of the main aims of genetic improvement. Regarding apples, some scab-resistant cultivars carrying the resistance gene Rvi6 are commercially available and the fruit quality of the last advanced Rvi6 selections is at least comparable to the well-known cultivars. Nevertheless, their commercial interest is still limited. One of the main limits that prevent their further diffusion could be the Rvi6 resistance breakdown that has been already reported in many European countries; however, to date, this resistance is still effective in Italy. In order to pursue a durable resistance, the pyramiding of different scab resistances in the same genotypes has been proposed and this approach was pursued in most of the breeding programs worldwide. To this extent, the development of new apple multiresistant cultivars with advanced selection procedures was started in the framework of the Italian AGER Project. From 2011 to 2013, ten cross combinations have been made among Rvi6 resistant cultivars and other monogenic resistances selections carrying different resistance genes, i.e., Rvi5, Rvi2, Rvi4, and Rvi13. Parents have been chosen according to their previously investigated aptitude in transmitting excellent quality traits and good agronomic performances. A total of 5.722 seedlings have been produced, and the MAS for the presence of traits: Rvi6 + Rvi5; Rvi6 + Rvi13; Rvi6 + Rvi2 and Rvi4 have been started. The progeny plants selected by marker-assisted selection are going to be grafted for the additional selection steps for fruit quality traits and agronomic performance.

Summary Fumaric acid esters (FAEs) are effective in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis. Recent studies also report the efficacy of one FAE component, dimethylfumarate, in relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). We describe the case of a patient with MS who developed severe plaque psoriasis during interferon-β-1a treatment for MS. The psoriasis was unresponsive to usual topical treatments and phototherapy. The patient was started on FAE 720 mg daily, with complete remission of the psoriatic lesions and neurological stabilization at follow-up at 24 months. Our case suggests that FAEs could represent a therapeutic option for patients with MS who develop plaque psoriasis following exposure to immune-modulating agents.

Quality of sleep is an important attribute of an individual's health state and its assessment is therefore a useful diagnostic feature. Changes in the patterns of motor activities during sleep can be a disease marker, or can reflect various abnormal physiological and neurological conditions. Presently, there are no convenient, unobtrusive ways to assess quality of sleep outside of a clinic. This paper describes a system for unobtrusive detection of movement in bed that uses load cells installed at the corners of a bed. The system focuses on identifying when a movement occurs based on the forces sensed by the load cells. The movement detection approach estimates the energy in each load cell signal over short segments to capture the variations caused by movement. The accuracy of the detector is evaluated using data collected in the laboratory. The detector is capable of detecting voluntary movements in bed while the subjects were awake, with an average equal error rate of 3.22% (+/-0.54). Its performance is invariant with respect to the individual's characteristics, e.g., weight, as well as those of the bed. The simplicity of the resulting algorithms and their relative insensitivity to the weight and height of the monitored individual make the approach practical and easily deployable in residential and clinical settings.

Cr- or Fe-ion-doped TiO2 thin films have been synthesized by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and a sol–gel method to study hydrogen generation by photocatalytic water-splitting under visible light irradiation. The doping method, dopant concentration, charge transfer from metal dopants to TiO2, and type of dopants used for modification of TiO2 were investigated for their ability to enhance photocatalytic activity. UV–Visible spectra show that the metal-doped-TiO2 obtained by sputtering is much more efficient than that obtained by the sol–gel technique at inducing a red shift of the absorption edge in the visible light range. Low concentration metal ion doping must be done near the conducting indium tin oxide (ITO) – TiO2 interface to avoid the formation of recombination centers for photo-generated electron–hole pairs. H2 production rate (μmol/h) is higher for Fe-doped TiO2 (15.5 μmol/h) than for Cr-doped TiO2 (5.3 μmol/h) due to the ability of Fe ions to trap both electrons and holes, thus avoiding recombination, while Cr can only trap one type of charge carrier. A constant H2 generation rate is obtained for long periods of time by all the investigated TiO2 films because of the separate evolution of H2 and O2 gases, thus eliminating the back-reaction effect.

Photocatalytic reaction of activated TiO 2 can be directly used for water splitting to produce hydrogen for fuel cell. TiO 2 thin films have been deposited using sol–gel method and subsequently heat-treated at 500 °C to form anatase phase. Ar + or N + ions with energy of 30 keV were implanted in anatase TiO 2 thin films with different ion doses in order to modify the band gap for visible light absorbance. UV–Vis spectroscopy was used to check the efficiency for absorbing visible light while structural and surface modifications caused by implantation were studied by using FT-IR and SEM respectively in the TiO 2 films. The ion-beam modified samples were found to be more efficient to absorb visible light in comparison to pure TiO 2 films. This efficiency of absorption increases with the implantation dose without any structural changes studied from FT-IR analysis. Ar + ions caused the formation of defect energy levels in the band gap while N + ions efficiently narrowed the band gap of TiO 2 thin film in the visible light region. The results are further discussed in terms of defect formation caused by ion implantation.

TiO2 thin films have been synthesized by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and sol–gel method to study the hydrogen generation by photocatalytic water splitting under visible light irradiation. Photoelectrochemical cell with chemical bias, involving photo-anode in form of TiO2 film deposited on conducting indium tin oxide (ITO) film and Pt as cathode, is developed. The effect of conducting ITO layer on photo-voltage is studied by varying the thickness of ITO films. Constant H2 generation rate is obtained for long period of time by both the TiO2 films because of the separated evolution of H2 and O2 gas, thus eliminating the back-reaction effect. Sputter-deposited film as compared to sol–gel-synthesized film showed better H2 generation rate, mainly explained in terms of the higher visible light absorption achieved by oxygen vacancies created in the TiO2 film by the energetic target ions during deposition in pure Ar gas pressure.

This investigation directly tested the Consider-An-Alternative debiasing procedure and the reduction of pessimistic threat-related judgments associated with anxiety. Two separate generation interventions were included to test the availability heuristic as a possible explanation of the debiasing effect. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three interventions and probability estimates of future threat-related events were completed in a repeated measures experimental design. Level of trait anxiety was measured to assign participants to “normal” and highly anxious groups. The data were analyzed in a 3 × 2 × 2 mixed factorial repeated measures ANOVA. The results found that only the short debiasing intervention showed a significant reduction of pessimistic judgments in comparison to the control group. The results were interpreted as supporting the availability heuristic as an explanation of the debiasing effect. Further analysis also suggested that the content of recall may be as important to the debiasing effect as ease of recall.

Carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacteria (CRGNB, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa)) are important nosocomial pathogens in Greece.

Zn alloys are able to surpass the performance of electrogalvanised or hot-dip Zn (at same thickness) for corrosion protection of car bodies. In particular, vacuum deposited Zn alloy layers have higher protection power on non-painted steel surfaces as compared with pure Zn layers. In the present work the Zn–Mn system was investigated: Zn/Mn alloys of different compositions as well as Zn/Mn multilayers of 5–6 μm total thickness were prepared on low alloy steel by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD). The equipment contained two electron beam evaporators and a slit extraction ion source, delivering ions of 100–1500 eV energy. The corrosion behaviour of the samples was evaluated by standard salt spray tests (SST). The composition and microstructure of the coatings was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and EDX-depth profiling. The behaviour of the coating/substrate system is discussed in comparison with ‘state of the art’ Zn-coatings (EZ) produced by electrogalvanizing. Generally speaking, the performance of the optimised coatings is as good or better than the reference standard.

The ternary compound TiAlN coating has been known to be superior to binary compound TiN in protecting tools, which may be damaged by high thermal load. In the present study, TiAlN coatings are deposited on stainless (AISI 316L) and carbon steel substrates by using DC sputtering technique. The structure of TiAlN coatings with different Al contents is studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results reveal that the structure evolves from the cubic B1 type of TiN to the hexagonal phase of AlN when the Al content increases from 0 to 70 at.%. The oxidation behavior of deposited TiAlN coatings with different Al concentrations are investigated at oxidation temperatures ranging from 300 to 800 °C using energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. It is concluded that the oxidation resistance is enhanced at first and then decreases with increasing Al content, the addition of 40 at.% Al leading to the best anti-oxidation effect. Coatings of same composition exhibit the best barrier performance to hydrogen permeation.

Considerable efforts have been made to improve the physical and chemical properties of a large number of polymers by ion implantation, and the enhancement of various properties was attributed to different mechanisms like chain scission, cross-linking and carbonization. It was observed that ion implantation can also improve the surface properties of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) but the mechanisms for such enhancement are not completely clear yet. In this work we have studied the adhesion of Au thin films on PTFE. The PTFE substrates were implanted with 160 keV N ions to a dose range between 1×10 14 and 1×10 17 ions/cm 2 . The treated samples were examined by visible (514.5 nm) and FT infrared (1064 nm) Raman spectroscopy as well as by scanning electron microscopy. Ion implantation on PTFE in the low dose range leads to the splitting of weaker CC bonds; in the intermediate dose range sputter loss effects are dominant, and at higher doses, the microstructure strongly evolves and double CC bonds are created. Before and/or after the ion pretreatment, the specimens were coated (with a sputtering technique) with 150 nm thick Au films. Adhesion properties of the films were assessed by conventional scratch- and scotch-tape tests in conjunction with optical microscopy. In the case of pre-deposited coatings, enhanced adhesion occurs only if the implanted dose is lower than 2×10 14 ions/cm 2 , in connection with the formation of dangling bonds in the polymer (‘chemical’ adhesion), as confirmed by contact angle measurements. In the case of post-deposited coatings, enhanced adhesion occurs in the whole dose range. In the medium-high dose range, the enhanced adhesion can be related to the development of surface topography of the polymer substrate (‘mechanical’ adhesion).

The metallisation of glass for decorative and/or functional purposes is now a well-established technique. The most popular methods are electroplating or sputter deposition. In order to obtain suitable adhesion, substrate pretreatment is a substantial part of a vapour-deposited coating that generally cannot be dispensed with. The pretreatment costs can reach the same order of magnitude as those associated with the actual coating process, or can even exceed them. In this work we studied the adhesion of Au thin films on glass. The substrates were pretreated by an ion-beam-mixing step, consisting of the deposition of Au/C bilayers or C/Au/C multilayers followed by Xe + implantation. After such preparation, the specimens were further coated (using a sputtering machine) with 150-nm-thick Au or Au-alloy films. Adhesion properties of the films were examined using a scratch tester in conjunction with scanning electron microscopy. It was observed that, without the ion-beam-mixing pretreatment, the coatings were poorly adherent. Strong adhesion enhancement was observed in the pretreated samples. The key mechanism envisaged to explain this is related to the formation of mixed SiC–Au phases at the interface region. Moreover, the mechanical properties of the pure and alloyed Au films were quantified by nano-indentation, and hardness results are in good agreement with a simple rigid-sphere model of substitutional hardening.

Aerospace engineering experiments are made accessible via internet for education purposes within a team of universities in Europe and Amerika. The students at the partner institutes perform by telematic techniques at their home university the experiments with the distributed, remote hardware. This paper presents an overview of this virtual laboratory and discusses two such exemplary experiments: control of a swinging structure and tele-operations of a planetary rover. Special emphasis is placed on the realisation of the remote control via internet and on modelling, identification and control aspects of the experiment, motivated by a space systems design context.

Modern plastics are of great importance in many practical applications and their performance can be enhanced by surface modification to improve their hardness, wear and chemical resistance. Metallic coatings, in particular hard Cr, have been successfully deposited by various techniques; unfortunately, the low polymer surface tension opposed to the high intrinsic stresses of the coatings often gave adhesion problems. The conventional pre-treatment of polymers in view of metallization is based on hazardous and pollutive agents. We used a combination of ion implantation and vapor deposition (performed in the same chamber) allowing for the production of well adherent coatings. N + ions were implanted at medium–low doses on polycarbonate substrates. Following ion irradiation, chromium films were deposited by evaporation. The implanted substrates were characterized with respect to their structure by Raman spectroscopy, wettability and nanohardness. The mechanical properties of the coatings were examined as a function of the ion beam treatment. The coatings were characterized with respect to morphology, scratching resistance as well as nanohardness. It was observed that, without the ion pre-treatment, the coatings were poorly adherent. Due to the high level of stresses developed in the Cr layers, the coatings on unimplanted samples appeared broken, as expected. On the contrary, the adhesion of the coatings was appreciably better for the pre-implanted specimens. This was certainly due to the superior mechanical properties exhibited by the implanted polymers as well as to enhanced wettability induced by energetic ion bombardment. Scratch tests showed an optimized tribological behavior for the ion implanted/coated polymer surfaces.

In the present work, various Zn–Cr alloy coatings were deposited on automobilistic steels by a vacuum process, in which Zn and Cr are evaporated from resistance heated sources. After ion etching, different Zn:Cr evaporation rates were applied to produce several compositions in the films until a final coating thickness of 4 μm was obtained. The coatings were characterized with respect to morphology (SEM), structure (XRD) and hardness (by nanoindentation). The structure changed from the hexagonal Zn–Cr solid solution to a cubic (bcc) phase as the amount of Cr in the coating increased. Nanoindentation tests showed that the presence of Cr can significantly change coating hardness: this effect can be correlated with compositional and microstructural changes. To optimise the adhesion, the necessity of a multistage pre-treatment of the steel substrates was recognized. Further to Ar + sputter cleaning of the substrates, the deposition of a thin Cr interlayer is necessary. It was observed that, without suitable pre-treatments, the coatings are poorly adherent. Salt spray corrosion tests revealed that even small Cr additions are able to significantly improve the corrosion resistance of Zn coatings. The time for red rust to appear is very long (at least four times) when compared to pure Zn vapour deposited, or steel sheet electroplated with Zn (reference specimens). The generation of protective corrosion products which can suppress cathodic reaction is considered an important factor for that improvement.

The use of polymeric materials is often limited by low hardness, poor wear resistance and wettability considerations. The area of mechanical changes caused by ion beam treatments has been explored only to a limited extent for polymers despite their growing usage in automotive, biomedical and aerospace applications, in which traditionally metals have been used. Polycarbonate (PC) specimens were subjected to medium–high energy (160 keV) nitrogen ion implantation at different dosage. Ion irradiation, even at low fluence, can improve surface properties in a well controlled way. A colour change from amber to dark brown with increasing fluence is associated with the ion implantation process. Hardness and elastic modulus, as measured by a nanoindenter, increase dramatically with increasing N dose. The surface property improvement can be explained by cross-linking phenomena, responsible for the formation of a three-dimensionally connected rigid network. Such hypothesis is confirmed by TOF-SIMS analyses of untreated and ion bombarded specimens. Too high implanted fluence may induce progressive degradation of the PC surface. Should the thickness of the ion-modified layer be too low for a specific application, it is possible to extend the ion irradiation treatment by plasma or ion beam assisted deposition of hard semi-transparent top layers. Using such a method the advantages of both the techniques can be retained to obtain PC surfaces with optimum wear resistance properties.

A two dimensional transient analytical model was developed to study and evaluate high temperature phase change thermal energy storage systems for space applications. Parametric studies were performed in order to assess the effects of various thermal and geometric parameters on the heat transfer process and on the performance of the energy storage system. Studies were also conducted to evaluate the effects of these parameters on the cyclic heating and cooling modes of the system.

Quality of sleep is an important attribute of an individual's health state and its assessment is therefore a useful diagnostic feature. Changes in the patterns of mobility in bed during sleep can be a disease marker or can reflect various abnormal physiological and neurological conditions. This paper describes a method for detection of movement in bed that is evaluated on data collected from patients admitted for regular polysomnography. The system is based on load cells installed at the supports of a bed. Since the load cell signal varies the most during movement, the approach uses a weighted combination of the short-term mean-square differences of each load cell signal to capture the variations in the signal caused by movement. We use a single univariate Gaussian model to represent each class: movement versus non-movement. We assess the performance of the method against manual annotation performed by a sleep clinic technician from seventeen patients. The proposed detection method achieved an overall sensitivity of 97.9% and specificity of 98.7%.

A silicon based potentiometric transducer (LAPS, Light Addressable Potentiometric Sensor) has been previously characterized both as a pH (Si 3 N 4 sensitive surface) and as a redox potential sensor (metal sensitive surface). The transducer, in the redox configuration, has been used to monitor the enzymatic activity of HRP (Horse Radish Peroxidase) which can be used as a label in an immunoenzymatic application. A competitive immunoenzymatic assay for the detection of the pesticide 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) has been set up. A monoclonal antibody has been immobilized both on a preactivated membrane and glass. The values of enzymatic activity measured by the sensor in these samples versus the analyte concentration show the typical trend of competitive immunoassays and the limit of detection is comparable to the one obtained with the conventional colorimetric methods (Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA)). These standard assays have been used as a check for our results and also as guidelines for the setting up of the experiments with the sensor.

To produce smooth ceramic surfaces, with the aim to improve their mechanical capabilities, e.g. thermal shock, erosion and corrosion behaviour, various beam techniques (laser, electron, ion) can be used. Each presents favourable and less favourable aspects. If the surface of a solid is subjected to irradiation by high-intensity pulsed ion beams (HIPIBs), the intensity of the pulse can be set sufficiently high to bring the solid surface to a high temperature, i.e. the melting point or higher, thus enabling glazing applications to be performed. In our experiments, HIPIBs were generated in a rod plasma injector machine, equipped with coaxial grid-type electrodes. Several pulses of plasma, containing ions from a discharge in a nitrogen atmosphere, were used to irradiate sintered SiC substrates. The energy density of the pulses was in the range 4–6 J cm −2 . The ion energy was estimated to be 10 keV. The samples were analysed by Auger electron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. An improved tribological behaviour of the treated surfaces was found without deterioration of the bulk properties.

The effect of nitrogen implantation into pure aluminium has been extensively explored, taking into account the variation of several physical and technological properties of the implanted layer. In particular, the formation of aluminium nitride, which occurs under specific choices of the implantation parameters, is associated with an increase in hardness. In this work, we consider two Al alloys (Al-7075 and Al-2011), frequently employed in the mechanical industry, with properties strongly dependent on the thermomechanical treatment. Molecular nitrogen bombardment at 150 keV (75keV N + ) was employed, up to a total dose of 3 × 10 17 N cm −2 , varying the substrate temperature from 373 to 473 K. The samples were then characterized with respect to composition, structure, morphology, microhardness, scratch resistance (also performing multi-pass testing) and friction coefficient. The results were interpreted within the framework of micromechanical models describing the hardness of thin coatings deposited onto soft substrates; the microhardness of the implanted layer increased by a factor of five. It appears that nitrogen-implanted aluminium alloy layers, in spite of their shallow thickness, behave better than hard TiN-coated surfaces. Care must be taken to implant both alloys at the lowest possible temperature to avoid degradation of the substrate properties.

Poor quality of sleep increases the risk of many adverse health outcomes. Some measures of sleep, such as sleep efficiency or sleep duration, are calculated from periods of time when a patient is asleep and awake. The current method for assessing sleep and wakefulness is based on polysomnography, an expensive and inconvenient method of measuring sleep in a clinical setting. In this paper, we suggest an alternative method of detecting periods of sleep and wake that can be obtained unobtrusively in a patient's own home by placing load cells under the supports of their bed. Specifically, we use a support vector machine to classify periods of sleep and wake in a cohort of patients admitted to a sleep lab. The inputs to the classifier are subject demographic information, a statistical characterization of the load cell derived signals, and several sleep parameters estimated from the load cell data that are related to movement and respiration. Our proposed classifier achieves an average sensitivity of 0.808 and specificity of 0.812 with 90% confidence intervals of (0.790, 0.821) and (0.798, 0.826), respectively, when compared to the "gold-standard" sleep/wake annotations during polysomnography. As this performance is over 27 sleep patients with a wide variety of diagnosis levels of sleep disordered breathing, age, body mass index, and other demographics, our method is robust and works well in clinical practice.

Sleep is characterized by episodes of immobility interrupted by periods of voluntary and involuntary movement. Increased mobility in bed can be a sign of disrupted sleep that may reduce sleep quality. This paper describes a method for classification of the type of movement in bed using load cells installed at the corners of a bed. The approach is based on Gaussian Mixture Models using a time-domain feature representation. The movement classification system is evaluated on data collected in the laboratory, and it classified correctly 84.6% of movements. The unobtrusive aspect of this approach is particularly valuable for longer-term home monitoring against a standard clinical setting.

Using electroencephalographic methods (EEG), we have analyzed the basal sleep structure and the EEG power spectra of gerbils and rats during periods of wakefulness (W), synchronized sleep (SS) and paradoxical sleep (PS). During the 6hr light period examined, duration of sleep was similar for rats and gerbils, but gerbils showed fewer PS episodes and a longer amount of SS episodes followed by wakefulness. In addition, SS episodes preceding PS were of longer duration in gerbils than in rats. EEG power spectral analysis indicated a higher relative output in the 1–4 Hz range in gerbils in comparison with rats. On the whole, the data indicate the existence of significant differences in the basal sleep structure and EEG power spectra of gerbils and rats. This background information might be useful in the comparison of the effects of a given experimental treatment, such as cerebral ischemia, on the EEG activity of these two animal species.

In this paper, Trajectory Linearization Control (TLC) is used to design a six degree-of-freedom, autonomous, trajectory-tracking controller for a fixed-wing vehicle dynamics model. TLC combines an open-loop dynamic inverse of the plant dynamics with a closed-loop tracking-error regulator that accounts for model mismatch, disturbances, and excitation of internal dynamics. Feedback gains are obtained symbolically as a function of the nominal trajectory, thus avoiding the use of gain scheduling, and enabling operation across the full flight-envelope without the need for mode-switching. The design method is presented, and trajectory-tracking simulation results are given for a climbing, bank-to-turn maneuver.

Many individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) experience behavioral and neuropsychiatric symptoms, which may cause caregiver distress and lead to the institutionalization of the patient. This analysis characterized behavioral symptoms and caregiver distress in trials of galantamine and their response to treatment.Data were pooled from four randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials of galantamine in patients with mild to moderate AD (three studies) or AD plus cerebrovascular disease (one study) (n = 2177). Behavior and associated caregiver distress were assessed in each study using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and NPI distress (NPI-D), respectively.After 5/6 months, but not after 3 months, NPI score was significantly improved with galantamine vs placebo (P = 0.013). The benefit was particularly pronounced in patients categorized as having advanced moderate AD. At 5/6 months, there was a numerical benefit of galantamine over placebo in terms of caregiver distress; the difference was statistically significant in patients with moderate or advanced moderate AD.Galantamine reduces behavioral symptoms in patients with mild to moderate AD, leading to reduced caregiver burden. The reductions were greatest in patients with moderate or advanced moderate disease.