Double-cone ignition [Zhang et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 378, 20200015 (2020)] was proposed recently as a novel path for direct-drive inertial confinement fusion using high-power lasers. In this scheme, plasma jets with both high density and high velocity are required for collisions. Here we report preliminary experimental results obtained at the Shenguang-II upgrade laser facility, employing a CHCl shell in a gold cone irradiated with a two-ramp laser pulse. The CHCl shell was pre-compressed by the first laser ramp to a density of 3.75 g/cm3 along the isentropic path. Subsequently, the target was further compressed and accelerated by the second laser ramp in the cone. According to the simulations, the plasma jet reached a density of up to 15 g/cm3, while measurements indicated a velocity of 126.8 ± 17.1 km/s. The good agreements between experimental data and simulations are documented.

Lead-free BaTiO3 (BT)-based multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) with the thickness of dielectric layers ~9 μm were successfully fabricated by tape-casting and screen-printing techniques. A single phase of the pseudo-cubic structure was revealed by X-ray diffraction. Backscattered images and energy-dispersive X-ray elemental mapping indicated the high quality of MLCCs without observation of interaction, wrapping, or delamination. The relaxor state was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy and temperature-dependent permittivity. Impedance spectroscopy at various temperatures revealed the electrical heterogeneous response for MLCCs with high-resistive electrical components. Improved energy storage performance was obtained by multilayering, comparing with the bulk ceramics. Enhanced recoverable energy density ~6.88 J/cm3 with high efficiency ~90% were realized under an electric field of 820 kV/cm, which is mainly attributed to the intrinsic high-resistivity and relaxor behavior. Furthermore, good temperature (20–85 °C) and frequency stabilities (0.5–50 Hz) were observed in the MLCCs, which are attractive for pulsed power applications.

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite, which can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, including humans, leading to toxoplasmosis. Currently, the effective treatment for human toxoplasmosis is the combination of sulphadiazine and pyrimethamine. However, both drugs have serious side-effects and toxicity in the host. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the discovery of new anti-T. gondii drugs with high potency and less or no side-effects. Our findings suggest that lumefantrine exerts activity against T. gondii by inhibiting its proliferation in Vero cells in vitro without being toxic to Vero cells (P ≤ 0.01). Lumefantrine prolonged mice infected with T. gondii from death for 3 days at the concentration of 50 μg L−1 than negative control (phosphate-buffered saline treated only), and reduced the parasite burden in mouse tissues in vivo (P ≤ 0.01; P ≤ 0.05). In addition, a significant increase in interferon gamma (IFN-γ) production was observed in high-dose lumefantrine-treated mice (P ≤ 0.01), whereas interleukin 10 (IL-10) and IL-4 levels increased in low-dose lumefantrine-treated mice (P ≤ 0.01). The results demonstrated that lumefantrine may be a promising agent to treat toxoplasmosis, and more experiments on the protective mechanism of lumefantrine should be undertaken in further studies.

We study a rich family of robustly non-hyperbolic transitive diffeomorphisms and we show that each ergodic measure is approached by hyperbolic sets in weak$\ast$-topology and in entropy. For hyperbolic ergodic measures, it is a classical result of A. Katok. The novelty here is to deal with non-hyperbolic ergodic measures. As a consequence, we obtain the continuity of topological entropy.

In this paper, we review the status of the multifunctional experimental platform at the National Laboratory of High Power Laser and Physics (NLHPLP). The platform, including the SG-II laser facility, SG-II 9th beam, SG-II upgrade (SG-II UP) facility, and SG-II 5 PW facility, is operational and available for interested scientists studying inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and a broad range of high-energy-density physics. These facilities can provide important experimental capabilities by combining different pulse widths of nanosecond, picosecond, and femtosecond scales. In addition, the SG-II UP facility, consisting of a single petawatt system and an eight-beam nanosecond system, is introduced including several laser technologies that have been developed to ensure the performance of the facility. Recent developments of the SG-II 5 PW facility are also presented.

Familial monozygotic (MZ) twinning reports are rare around the world, and we report a four-generation pedigree with seven recorded pairs of female MZ twins. Whole-genome sequencing of seven family members was performed to explore the featured genetic factors in MZ twins. For variations specific to MZ twins, five novel variants were observed in the X chromosome. These candidates were used to explain the seemingly X-linked dominant inheritance pattern, and only one variant was exonic, located at the 5′UTR region of ZCCHC12 (chrX: 117958597, G > A). Besides, consistent mitochondrial DNA composition in the maternal linage precluded roles of mitochondria for this trait. In this pedigree, autosomes also contain diverse variations specific to MZ twins. Pathway analysis revealed a significant enrichment of genes carrying novel SNVs in the epithelial adherens junction-signaling pathway (p = .011), contributed by FGFR1, TUBB6, and MYH7B. Meanwhile, TBC1D22A, TRIOBP, and TUBB6, also carrying similar SNVs, were involved in the GTPase family-mediated signal pathway. Furthermore, gene-set enrichment analysis for 533 genes covered by copy number variations specific to MZ twins illustrated that the tight junction-signaling pathway was significantly enriched (p < .001). Therefore, the novel changes in the X chromosome and the provided candidate variants across autosomes may be responsible for MZ twinning, giving clues to increase our understanding about the underlying mechanism.

Structures of calcium-rare-earth (Ca-RE) fluorocarbonate minerals from southwest China have been investigated using selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). They are described as combinations of layers of bastnäsite-(Ce), CeFCO3 (B layers), and synchysite-(Ce), CeFCO3·CaCO3 (S layers) (Donnay and Donnay, 1953). We report here the discovery of six new, regular, mixed-layer structures in parisite-(Ce) observed using SAED and HRTEM. The symmetry, cell parameters, chemical formulae and stacking of the structural unit layers, etc., were determined for each. The regular, mixed-layer structures are formed by stacking unit layers of bastnäsite-(Ce) and synchysite-(Ce) in varying proportions along the c axis. HRTEM shows that there are different distribution modes for the Ce-F ion layers, the CO3 ion groups between the Ce-F ion layers and the CO3 ion groups between the Ce-F and Ca ion layers. The minerals may be regarded as polymorphs with the same chemical composition and the same spacing of the unit layers, but different arrangements of ion layers in the structural unit layers and different stacking sequences of the structural unit layers.

We prove that, for $C^{1}$-generic diffeomorphisms, if a homoclinic class is not hyperbolic, then there is a non-trivial non-hyperbolic ergodic measure supported on it. This proves a conjecture by Díaz and Gorodetski.

Given a 4-manifold, we build a non-empty ${C}^{1} $-open set of vector fields having a (chain transitive) attractor containing singularities of different indices. Then, we begin the study of the hyperbolic properties of such a robust singular attractor.

This report reviews the scientific activities on high power laser and laser plasma physics at CIAE. A 6-beam KrF excimer laser system (100 J/23 ns/248 nm/1013 W/cm2, 15 min/shot) has been built, the Raman technologies used to upgrade it to 1014 W/cm2 has been studied. A UV femtosecond Ti:sapphire/KrF hybrid laser (50 mJ/220 fs/248 nm/1017 W/cm2) has been developed also, hot electron generation research has been carried out in the fs laser. In the near future, the fs laser will be amplified in six-beam laser system to produce ultra-high intensity to do fundamental researches on Fast Ignition of ICF.

A six-beam multiplexing master-oscillator-power-amplifier (MOPA) high power KrF excimer laser system has been built at CIAE for fundamental research on laser–plasma interaction. The MOPA system consists of front-end, two-stage KrF amplifiers (preamplifier and main amplifier) pumped by two-side electron beams, an optical angular multiplexing system, a synchronization trigger system, and a controlling-data acquisition system and some diagnostic systems. The total energy of the six-beam output from main amplifier on the target is 100 J/23 ns, the divergence of one beam is 0.2 mrad, the focal spot diameter is 220 μm, and the focal intensity on the target is 1013 W/cm2.