Modern studies suggest that the upper ocean heat content (OHC) in the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) is a better qualitative predictor of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR). But it is still unknown how the OHC is mechanically linked to ISMR and whether it can be applied to long-term climate changes. By analyzing reanalysis datasets across the 20th century, we illustrate that in contrast to those anomalies associated with stronger ISM westerlies, higher ISMR is accompanied with summer surface high pressure and east wind anomalies from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal (BOB), and is loosely related to increased western TIO OHC during decayed phases of positive Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and of El Niño. Except for 1944–1968 AD, this interannually lagged ISMR response to winter OHC is insignificant, probably suppressed by those simultaneous effects of positive IOD and El Niño on ISMR. In our paleoclimatic simulations, this modern observed lagged response is interrupted by seasonally reversed insolation anomalies at the 23,000-year precessional band. Our sensitivity experiments further prove that, the ISMR can be simultaneously reduced by positive IOD-like summer OHC anomalies both for modern and precessional situations. This damping effect is mainly contributed by the warmer western TIO that triggers anomalous surface high pressure, easterly winds, and drastically reduced rainfall from BOB to Arabian Peninsula, but with slightly increased rainfall in the northern ISM region. And the cooler southeastern TIO will only moderately increase rainfall in the southern ISM region.

We report the unified constitutive law of vibroconvective turbulence in microgravity, i.e. $Nu \sim a^{-1} Re_{os}^\beta$ where the Nusselt number $Nu$ measures the global heat transport, $a$ is the dimensionless vibration amplitude, $Re_{os}$ is the oscillational Reynolds number and $\beta$ is the universal exponent. We find that the dynamics of boundary layers plays an essential role in vibroconvective heat transport and the $Nu$-scaling exponent $\beta$ is determined by the competition between the thermal boundary layer (TBL) and vibration-induced oscillating boundary layer (OBL). Then a physical model is proposed to explain the change of scaling exponent from $\beta =2$ in the TBL-dominant regime to $\beta = 4/3$ in the OBL-dominant regime. Our finding elucidates the emergence of universal constitutive laws in vibroconvective turbulence, and opens up a new avenue for generating a controllable effective heat transport under microgravity or even microfluidic environment in which the gravity effect is nearly absent.

Physically compliant actuator brings significant benefits to robots in terms of environmental adaptability, human–robot interaction, and energy efficiency as the introduction of the inherent compliance. However, this inherent compliance also limits the force and position control performance of the actuator system due to the induced oscillations and decreased mechanical bandwidth. To solve this problem, we first investigate the dynamic effects of implementing variable physical damping into a compliant actuator. Following this, we propose a structural scheme that integrates a variable damping element in parallel to a conventional series elastic actuator. A damping regulation algorithm is then developed for the parallel spring-damping actuator (PSDA) to tune the dynamic performance of the system while remaining sufficient compliance. Experimental results show that the PSDA offers better stability and dynamic capability in the force and position control by generating appropriate damping levels.

A comprehensive direct numerical simulation of electroconvection (EC) turbulence caused by strong unipolar charge injection in a two-dimensional cavity is performed. The EC turbulence has strong fluctuations and intermittency in the closed cavity. Several dominant large-scale structures are found, including two vertical main rolls and a single primary roll. The flow mode significantly influences the charge transport efficiency. A nearly $Ne \sim T^{1/2}$ scaling stage is observed, and the optimal $Ne$ increment is related to the mode with two vertical rolls, while the single roll mode decreases the charge transport efficiency. As the flow strength increases, EC turbulence transitions from an electric force-dominated mode to an inertia-dominated mode. The former utilizes the Coulomb force more effectively and allocates more energy to convection. The vertical mean profiles of charge, electric field and energy budget provide intuitive information on the spatial energy distribution. With the aid of the energy-box technique, a detailed energy transport evolution is illustrated with changing electric Rayleigh numbers. This exploration of EC turbulence can help explain more complicated electrokinetic turbulence mechanisms and the successful utilization of Fourier mode decomposition and energy-box techniques is expected to benefit future EC studies.

Background. The most common site of prostate cancer metastasis is bone tissue with many recent studies having conducted genomic and clinical research regarding bone metastatic prostate cancer. However, further work is needed to better define those patients that are at an elevated risk of such metastasis. Methods. SEER and TCGA databases were searched to develop a nomogram for predicting prostate cancer bone metastasis. Results. Herein, we leveraged the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to construct a predictive nomogram capable of readily and accurately predicted the odds of bone metastasis in prostate cancer patients. This nomogram was utilized to assign patients with prostate cancer included in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to cohorts at a high or low risk of bone metastasis (HRBM and LRBM, respectively). Comparisons of these LRBM and HRBM cohorts revealed marked differences in mutational landscapes between these patient cohorts, with increased frequencies of gene fusions, somatic copy number variations (CNVs), and single nucleotide variations (SNVs), particularly in the P53 gene, being evident in the HRBM cohort. We additionally identified lncRNAs, miRNAs, and mRNAs that were differentially expressed between these two patient cohorts and used them to construct a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network. Moreover, three weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) modules were constructed from the results of these analyses, with KIF14, MYH7, and COL10A1 being identified as hub genes within these modules. We further found immune response activity levels in the HRBM cohort to be elevated relative to that in the LRBM cohort, with single sample gene enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) scores for the immune checkpoint signature being increased in HRBM patient samples relative to those from LRBM patients. Conclusion. We successfully developed a nomogram capable of readily detecting patients with prostate cancer at an elevated risk of bone metastasis.

Labs as guide dogs or sniffer dogs in usage have been introduced into China for more than 20 years. These two types of working dogs own blunt or acute olfactory senses, which have been obtained by artificial selection in relatively closed populations. In order to attain stable olfactory attributes and meet use-oriented demands, Chinese breeders keep doing the same artificial selection. Though olfactory behavior is canine genetic behavior, genotypes of OR genes formed by breeding schemes are largely unknown. Here, we characterized 26 SNPs, 2 deletions, and 2 insertions of 7 OR genes between sniffer dogs and guide dogs in order to find out the candidate alleles associated with working specific traits. The results showed that there were candidate functional SNP alleles in one locus that had statistically severely significant differences between the two subpopulations. Furthermore, the levels of polymorphism were not high in all loci and linkage disequilibrium only happened within one OR gene. Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) tests showed that there was a higher ratio not in HWE and lower FST within the two working dog populations. We conclude that artificial selection in working capacities has acted on SNP alleles of OR genes in a dog breed and driven the evolution in compliance with people’s intentions though the changes are limited in decades of strategic breeding.

The aim was to assess epidemiological characteristics of the most recent consumption patterns of meat, vegetable, and fruit among representative urban and rural residents aged 60+ years in regional China. In this cross-sectional survey conducted in mid-2018, participants aged 60+ years were randomly chosen from urban and rural communities in Nanjing municipality of China. Meat, vegetable, and fruit intake were assessed with a validated food frequency questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression models were applied to compute odds ratio (OR) and 95 % confidence interval (CI) to investigate the association of socio-demographic characteristics with a likelihood of meeting intake recommendation. Among the 20 867 participants, 49⋅5 % were men and 45⋅0 % urban elders, and 6⋅5 % aged 80+ years. The mean values of consumption frequency of red meat, white meat, vegetable, and fruit were 2⋅99 ± 2⋅28, 1⋅37 ± 1⋅13, 5⋅24 ± 6⋅43, and 2⋅64 ± 2⋅91 times/week, respectively, among overall participants. Moreover, there were 14⋅9, 23⋅7, and 12⋅1 % of participants meeting intake recommendations of meat, vegetable, and fruit, separately, in this study. After adjustment for potential confounders, age, gender, residence area, and educational attainment each was associated with the likelihood of meeting intake recommendation of meat, vegetable, or fruit. The consumption frequency and proportion of participants meeting intake recommendations of meat, vegetable, or fruit were not high among elders in regional China. Socio-demographic characteristics were associated with intake recommendations of meat, vegetables, and fruit. It has public health implications that participants’ socio-demographic attributes shall be considered for precision intervention on meat, vegetable, and fruit consumption in healthy eating campaigns among elders in China.

Dietary antioxidant indices (DAI) may be potentially associated with relative telomere length (RTL) of leucocytes. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between DAI and RTL. A cross-sectional study involving 1656 participants was conducted. A generalised linear regression model and a restricted cubic spline model were used to assess the correlation of DAI and its components with RTL. Generalised linear regression analysis revealed that DAI (β = 0·005, P = 0·002) and the intake of its constituents vitamin C (β = 0·043, P = 0·027), vitamin E (β = 0·088, P < 0·001), Se (β = 0·075, P = 0·003), and Zn (β = 0·075, P = 0·023) were significantly and positively correlated with RTL. Sex-stratified analysis showed that DAI (β = 0·006, P = 0·005) and its constituents vitamin E (β = 0·083, P = 0·012), Se (β = 0·093, P = 0·006), and Zn (β = 0·092, P = 0·034) were significantly and positively correlated with RTL among females. Meanwhile, among males, only vitamin E intake (β = 0·089, P = 0·013) was significantly and positively associated with RTL. Restricted cubic spline analysis revealed linear positive associations between DAI and its constituents’ (vitamin E, Se and Zn) intake and RTL in the total population. Sex-stratified analysis revealed a linear positive correlation between DAI and its constituents’ (vitamin E, Se and Zn) intake and RTL in females. Our study found a significant positive correlation between DAI and RTL, with sex differences.

This study investigates the effect of vibration on the flow structure transitions in thermal vibrational convection (TVC) systems, which occur when a fluid layer with a temperature gradient is excited by vibration. Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of TVC in a two-dimensional enclosed square box is performed over a range of dimensionless vibration amplitudes $0.001 \le a \le 0.3$ and angular frequencies $10^{2} \le \omega \le 10^{7}$, with a fixed Prandtl number of 4.38. The flow visualisation shows the transition behaviour of flow structure upon the varying frequency, characterising three distinct regimes, which are the periodic-circulation regime, columnar regime and columnar-broken regime. Different statistical properties are distinguished from the temperature and velocity fluctuations at the boundary layer and mid-height. Upon transition into the columnar regime, columnar thermal coherent structures are formed, in contrast to the periodic oscillating circulation. These columns are contributed by the merging of thermal plumes near the boundary layer, and the resultant thermal updrafts remain at almost fixed lateral position, leading to a decrease in fluctuations. We further find that the critical point of this transition can be described nicely by the vibrational Rayleigh number ${{Ra}}_{vib}$. As the frequency continues to increase, entering the so-called columnar-broken regime, the columnar structures are broken, and eventually the flow state becomes a large-scale circulation (LSC), characterised by a sudden increase in fluctuations. Finally, a phase diagram is constructed to summarise the flow structure transition over a wide range of vibration amplitude and frequency parameters.

A high-power all polarization-maintaining (PM) chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system operating in the 2.0 μm range is experimentally demonstrated. Large mode area (LMA) thulium-doped fiber (TDF) with a core/cladding diameter of 25/400 μm is employed to construct the main amplifier. Through dedicated coiling and cooling of the LMA-TDF to manage the loss of the higher order mode and thermal effect, a maximum average power of 314 W with a slope efficiency of 52% and polarization extinction ratio of 20 dB is realized. The pulse duration is compressed to 283 fs with a grating pair, corresponding to a calculated peak power of 10.8 MW, considering the compression efficiency of 88% and the estimated Strehl ratio of 89%. Moreover, through characterizing the noise properties of the laser, an integrated relative intensity noise of 0.11% at 100 Hz−1 MHz is obtained at the maximum output power, whereas the laser timing jitter is degraded by the final amplifier from 318 to 410 fs at an integration frequency of 5 kHz to 1 MHz, owing to the self-phase modulation effect-induced spectrum broadening. The root-mean-square of long-term power fluctuation is tested to be 0.6%, verifying the good stability of the laser operation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power of an ultrafast laser realized from an all-PM-fiber TDF-CPA system ever reported.

We numerically investigated the global linear instability and bifurcations in electro-thermo-convection (ETC) of a dielectric liquid confined in a two-dimensional (2-D) concentric annulus subjected to a strong unipolar injection. Seven kinds of solutions exist in this ETC system due to the complex bifurcations, i.e. saddle-node, subcritical and supercritical Hopf bifurcations. These bifurcation routes constitute at most four solution branches. Global linear instability analysis and energy analysis were conducted to explain the instability mechanism and transition of different solutions and to predict the local instability regions. The linearized lattice Boltzmann method (LLBM) for global linear instability analysis, first proposed by Pérez et al. (Theor. Comput. Fluid Dyn., vol. 31, 2017, pp. 643–664) to analyse incompressible flows, was extended here to solve the whole set of coupled linear equations, including the linear Navier–Stokes equations, the linear energy equation, Poisson's equation and the linear charge conservation equation. A multiscale analysis was also performed to recover the macroscopic linearized Navier–Stokes equations from the four different discrete lattice Boltzmann equations (LBEs). The LLBM was validated by calculating the linear critical value of 2-D natural convection; it has an error of 1.39% compared with the spectral method. Instability with global travelling wave behaviour is a unique behaviour in the annulus configuration electrothermohydrodynamic system, which may be caused by the baroclinity. Finally, the chaotic behaviour was quantitatively analysed through calculation of the fractal dimension and Lyapunov exponent.

We present the results of two population surveys conducted 10 years apart (December 2010–February 2011 and December 2020–January 2021) of the Critically Endangered white-headed langur Trachypithecus leucocephalus in the Chongzuo White-Headed Langur National Nature Reserve, Guangxi Province, China. In the first survey, we recorded 818 individuals in 105 groups and 16 solitary adult males. In the second survey, we recorded 1,183 individuals in 128 groups and one solitary adult male. As a result of government policies, poaching for food and traditional medicine is no longer a primary threat to these langurs. However, severe forest loss and fragmentation caused by human activities could limit any future increase of this langur population.

Straightplasma channels are widely used to guide relativistic intense laser pulses over several Rayleigh lengths for laser wakefield acceleration. Recently, a curved plasma channel with gradually varied curvature was suggested to guide a fresh intense laser pulse and merge it into a straight channel for staged wakefield acceleration [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 154801 (2018)]. In this work, we report the generation of such a curved plasma channel from a discharged capillary. Both longitudinal and transverse density distributions of the plasma inside the channel were diagnosed by analyzing the discharging spectroscopy. Effects of the gas-filling mode, back pressure and discharging voltage on the plasma density distribution inside the specially designed capillary are studied. Experiments show that a longitudinally uniform and transversely parabolic plasma channel with a maximum channel depth of 47.5 μm and length of 3 cm can be produced, which is temporally stable enough for laser guiding. Using such a plasma channel, a laser pulse with duration of 30 fs has been successfully guided along the channel with the propagation direction bent by 10.4°.

Since 2016, China has been conducting military flybys around Taiwan, while the US has approved arms sales to Taiwan on several occasions and sent warplanes and battleships through the Taiwan Strait. How does Taiwanese public opinion respond to the Chinese and US military presence in the Strait? Is the public likely to become less supportive of de jure independence for Taiwan on account of China's military deterrence or more supportive owing to a perceived likelihood of US military assistance? In this report, we provide answers to these questions based on evidence from a survey experiment conducted in Taiwan in October–November 2020. We find that Taiwanese are less sensitive to the Chinese military presence in the Taiwan Strait but have become more supportive of de jure independence after seeing the US aircraft in the area. Our findings contribute to studies of cross-Strait relations and US foreign policy on the Taiwan Strait.

An all-fiber high-power linearly polarized chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system is experimentally demonstrated. Through stretching the pulse duration to a full width of approximately 2 ns with two cascaded chirped fiber Bragg gratings (CFBGs), a maximum average output power of 612 W is achieved from a high-gain Yb-doped fiber that has a core diameter of 20 μm with a slope efficiency of approximately 68% at the repetition rate of 80 MHz. At the maximum output power, the polarization degree is 92.5% and the M2 factor of the output beam quality is approximately 1.29; the slight performance degradations are attributed to the thermal effects in the main amplifier. By optimizing the B-integral of the amplifier and finely adjusting the higher-order dispersion of one of the CFBGs, the pulse width is compressed to 863 fs at the highest power with a compression efficiency of 72%, corresponding to a maximum compressed average power of 440.6 W, single pulse energy of 5.5 μJ and peak power of about 4.67 MW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power of a femtosecond laser directly generated from an all-fiber linearly polarized CPA system.

In this paper, we prove that the ratio of the modulus of the iterates of two points in an escaping Fatou component could be bounded even if the orbit of the component contains a sequence of annuli whose moduli tend to infinity, and this cannot happen when the maximal modulus of the meromorphic function is uniformly large enough. In this way we extend certain related results for entire functions to meromorphic functions with infinitely many poles.

The new mineral, gysinite-(La), with the ideal formula PbLa(CO3)2(OH)⋅H2O, has been discovered in lujavrite from the Saima alkaline complex, Liaoning Province, China. It commonly occurs as subhedral to anhedral, granular and platy crystals of 5 to 50 μm in size, in interstices or enclosed in microcline, aegirine and nepheline. Associated minerals include nepheline, aegirine, microcline, natrolite, eudialyte, lamprophyllite, bastnäsite-(Ce), parasite-(Ce), ancylite-(La), ancylite-(Ce), bobtraillite, britholite-(Ce), thorite, calcite and galena. The crystallisation of gysinite-(La) may be related to the post-magmatic carbonation event. Gysinite-(La) crystals are generally transparent, colourless, or pale yellow, with a vitreous lustre and white streak. It is brittle with an uneven fracture, and the estimated Mohs hardness is 3½ to 4. The calculated density is 5.007 g/cm3. Optically, gysinite-(La) is biaxial (–), α= 1.832(2), β= 1.849(4), γ = 1.862(5) in white light and 2Vmeas = 81.6°. The empirical formula of gysinite-(La) is (La0.93Pb0.61Nd0.23Pr0.14Sr0.04Gd0.02Sm0.01Eu0.01Ca0.01)Σ2(CO3)2(OH)1.34⋅0.66H2O, which is calculated on the basis of general formula (REExM2+2–x)(CO3)2(OH)x⋅(2–x)H2O. The strongest eight lines of its powder X-ray diffraction pattern [d, Å (I, %) (hkl)] are: 5.596 (21) (011), 4.349 (100) (110), 3.732 (68) (111), 2.984 (61) (121), 2.667 (21) (031), 2.363 (48) (131), 2.090 (29) (221) and 2.028 (21) (212). Gysinite-(La) is orthorhombic, in the space group Pmcn, and unit-cell parameters refined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction data are: a = 5.0655(2) Å, b = 8.5990(3) Å, c = 7.3901(4) Å, V = 321.90(2) Å3 and Z = 2. It is a new member of the ancylite group and isostructural with gysinite-(Nd), but with La and Pb dominant in the metal cation sites in the structure.