As space missions are needed in the future, the assembly volume of the space truss will become larger and larger, and the advancing path of the on-orbit cellular robot to the mission target will become more and more complicated. If the shortest moving path cannot be found in the truss environment, the climbing time of the robot on the truss will be greatly increased. To improve the speed of the cellular robot moving to the target point on the large space truss, this paper designs a cellular robot structure and configuration suitable for climbing on the truss and uses the improved sparrow algorithm to solve the problem of robot motion path planning. By establishing a mathematical model of the space truss, the improved sparrow algorithm is used to find the shortest path between the starting point and the end point in the truss environment. Finally, the data of this algorithm are compared with the data of other algorithms. The data results show that the improved sparrow algorithm is very effective in solving the optimal path of the space truss. The improved sparrow algorithm keeps the same optimal path compared with the standard sparrow algorithm, and the overall reaction time is increased by 51.60%, and the number of effective iterations is increased by about 13.87%.

Let $f(z)=\sum\limits_{j=0}^{\infty} a_j z^j$ be a transcendental entire function and let $f_\omega(z)=\sum\limits_{j=0}^{\infty}\chi_j(\omega) a_j z^j$ be a random entire function, where $\chi_j(\omega)$ are independent and identically distributed random variables defined on a probability space $(\Omega, \mathcal{F}, \mu)$. In this paper, we first define a family of random entire functions, which includes Gaussian, Rademacher and Steinhaus entire functions. We prove that, for almost all functions in the family and for any constant C > 1, there exist a constant $r_0=r_0(\omega)$ and a set $E\subset [e, \infty)$ of finite logarithmic measure such that, for $r \gt r_0$ and $r\notin E$,

\begin{equation*}|\log M(r, f)- N(r,0, f_\omega)|\le (C/A)^{\frac1{B}}\,\log^{\frac1{B}}\,\log M(r,f) +\log\,\log M(r, f), \qquad a.s.\end{equation*}

where $A, B$ are constants, $M(r, f)$ is the maximum modulus and $N(r, 0, f)$ is the integrated zero-counting function of f. As a by-product of our main results, we prove Nevanlinna’s second main theorem for random entire functions. Thus, the characteristic function of almost all functions in the family is bounded above by an integrated counting function, rather than by two integrated counting functions as in the classical Nevanlinna theory. For instance, we show that, for almost all Gaussian entire functions fω and for any ϵ > 0, there is r0 such that, for $r \gt r_0$,

\begin{equation*}T(r, f) \le N(r,0, f_\omega)+\left(\tfrac12+\epsilon\right) \log T(r, f).\end{equation*}

SARS-CoV-2 rapidly spreads among humans via social networks, with social mixing and network characteristics potentially facilitating transmission. However, limited data on topological structural features has hindered in-depth studies. Existing research is based on snapshot analyses, preventing temporal investigations of network changes. Comparing network characteristics over time offers additional insights into transmission dynamics. We examined confirmed COVID-19 patients from an eastern Chinese province, analyzing social mixing and network characteristics using transmission network topology before and after widespread interventions. Between the two time periods, the percentage of singleton networks increased from 38.9$ \% $ to 62.8$ \% $$ (p<0.001) $; the average shortest path length decreased from 1.53 to 1.14 $ (p<0.001) $; the average betweenness reduced from 0.65 to 0.11$ (p<0.001) $; the average cluster size dropped from 4.05 to 2.72 $ (p=0.004) $; and the out-degree had a slight but nonsignificant decline from 0.75 to 0.63 $ (p=0.099). $ Results show that nonpharmaceutical interventions effectively disrupted transmission networks, preventing further disease spread. Additionally, we found that the networks’ dynamic structure provided more information than solely examining infection curves after applying descriptive and agent-based modeling approaches. In summary, we investigated social mixing and network characteristics of COVID-19 patients during different pandemic stages, revealing transmission network heterogeneities.

Suppose $\mathcal {H}$ is an admissible Heegaard diagram for a balanced sutured manifold $(M,\gamma )$. We prove that the number of generators of the associated sutured Heegaard Floer complex is an upper bound on the dimension of the sutured instanton homology $\mathit {SHI}(M,\gamma )$. It follows, in particular, that strong L-spaces are instanton L-spaces.

Short-wave group forcing is a major driving mechanism of infragravity waves. The subharmonic response to wave group forcing approaches resonance in shallow water where the group velocity is equal to the shallow-water wave-propagating speed. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of the connection between the free and bound components of group-induced infragravity waves and the consistency among existing solutions for off- and near-resonance conditions in intermediate and shallow water. Here, a unified solution of group-induced subharmonics is derived based on Green's function for the first time. The new solution is valid for any resonance intensity and is able to describe group-induced subharmonic behaviour at all water depths consistently from a new angle. The proposed solution reduces to existing solutions for intermediate depth (Longuet-Higgins & Stewart, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 13, 1962, pp. 481–504; Zou, Phys. Oceanogr., vol. 41, 2011, pp. 1842–1859), shallow water and/or over a plane sloping beach (Van Leeuwen, PhD thesis, TU Delft, 1992; Schäffer, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 247, 1993, pp. 551–588; Janssen et al., J. Geophys. Res., vol. 108, 2003, p. 3252; Contardo et al., J. Phys. Oceanogr., vol. 51, 2021, pp. 1465–1487; Liao et al., J. Phys. Oceanogr., vol. 51, 2021, pp. 2749–2765). Unlike previous solutions, the Green's function-based solution describes all subharmonics as free subharmonics continuously radiated away from each point source in the group-induced forcing field determined by wave radiation stress gradients. The superposition of all these free subharmonics yields so-called bound subharmonics by previous studies due to group-modulated emission of each free subharmonic through the source field bound to the wave group. Therefore, this solution provides theoretical evidence that the group-induced subharmonic at any observation point is dependent on the surrounding radiation stress field and topography. Under full-resonance conditions in shallow water, downwave-propagating subharmonics excited at all source locations interfere with each other constructively; therefore, their superposed amplitude is proportional to the travel distance of wave groups. Combined with the conventional moving-breakpoint forcing model, the predicted amplitude of the subharmonic in the surf zone by the present solution is in good agreement with laboratory observations.

To address coupling motion issues and realize large constant force range of microgrippers, we present a serial two-degree-of-freedom compliant constant force microgripper (CCFMG) in this paper. To realize a large output displacement in a compact structure, Scott–Russell displacement amplification mechanisms, bridge-type displacement amplification mechanisms, and lever amplification mechanisms are combined to compensate stroke of piezoelectric actuators. In addition, constant force modules are utilized to achieve a constant force output. We investigated CCFMG’s performances by means of pseudo-rigid body models and finite element analysis. Simulation results show that the proposed CCFMG has a stroke of 781.34 ${\unicode[Times]{x03BC}}\mathrm{m}$ in the X-direction and a stroke of 258.05 ${\unicode[Times]{x03BC}}\mathrm{m}$ in the Y-direction, and the decoupling rates in two directions are 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively. The average output constant force of the clamp is 37.49 N. The amplification ratios of the bridge-type amplifier and the Scott–Russell amplifier are 7.02 and 3, respectively. Through finite element analysis-based optimization, the constant force stroke of CCFMG is increased from the initial 1.6 to 3 mm.

The association between time-restricted eating (TRE) and the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is less studied. Moreover, whether the association is independent of physical exercise or diet quality or quantity is uncertain. In this nationwide cross-sectional study of 3813 participants, the timing of food intakes was recorded by 24-h recalls; NAFLD was defined through vibration-controlled transient elastography in the absence of other causes of chronic liver disease. OR and 95 % CI were estimated using logistic regression. Participants with daily eating window of ≤ 8 h had lower odds of NAFLD (OR = 0·70, 95 % CI: 0·52, 0·93), compared with those with ≥ 10 h window. Early (05.00–15.00) and late TRE (11.00–21.00) showed inverse associations with NAFLD prevalence without statistical heterogeneity (Pheterogeneity = 0·649) with OR of 0·73 (95 % CI: 0·36, 1·47) and 0·61 (95 % CI: 0·44, 0·84), respectively. Such inverse association seemed stronger in participants with lower energy intake (OR = 0·58, 95 % CI: 0·38, 0·89, Pinteraction = 0·020). There are no statistical differences in the TRE-NAFLD associations according to physical activity (Pinteraction = 0·390) or diet quality (Pinteraction = 0·110). TRE might be associated with lower likelihood of NAFLD. Such inverse association is independent of physical activity and diet quality and appears stronger in individuals consuming lower energy. Given the potential misclassification of TRE based on one- or two-day recall in the analysis, epidemiological studies with validated methods for measuring the habitual timing of dietary intake are warranted.

The plant Camellia fascicularis, belonging to family Theaceae, has high ornamental and medicinal value, and rare gene resources for genetic improvement of Camellia crops, but is currently threatened with extinction because of the unique and extremely small wild populations. Molecular markers have clarified the wild plant species’ genetic diversity structure, new gene resources and relationship with crops. This will be beneficial for conservation of these valuable crop-related wild species and crop improvement. In this study, we identified 95,979 microsatellite loci from 155,011 transcriptome unigenes, and developed 14 polymorphic expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) microsatellite markers for C. fascicularis. The number of alleles (Na) per locus was 2–8 with a mean of 4.86. The genetic diversity of 40 individuals from four natural populations of C. fascicularis was analysed using these polymorphic markers. The number of alleles (Na) for EST-SSR ranged from 2 to 5, with the expected heterozygosities (He) and observed heterozygosities (Ho) in all loci ranging from 0.183 to 0.683, and from 0.201 to 0.700, respectively, implying a rich genetic variation present in wild C. fascicularis populations. Moreover, the phylogenetic analysis among four populations, using the 14 EST-SSR markers developed in this study, grouped 40 individuals into three groups, which coincide with their geographic distribution. These results showed that 14 EST-SSR markers are available for the analysis of genetic variation in C. fascicularis populations and genetic improvement of new Camellias cultivars by interspecific hybridization, and are beneficial for conservation of the endangered species.

Visual place recognition (VPR) in condition-varying environments is still an open problem. Popular solutions are convolutional neural network (CNN)-based image descriptors, which have been shown to outperform traditional image descriptors based on hand-crafted visual features. However, there are two drawbacks of current CNN-based descriptors: (a) their high dimension and (b) lack of generalization, leading to low efficiency and poor performance in real robotic applications. In this paper, we propose to use a convolutional autoencoder (CAE) to tackle this problem. We employ a high-level layer of a pre-trained CNN to generate features and train a CAE to map the features to a low-dimensional space to improve the condition invariance property of the descriptor and reduce its dimension at the same time. We verify our method in four challenging real-world datasets involving significant illumination changes, and our method is shown to be superior to the state-of-the-art. The code of our work is publicly available at https://github.com/MedlarTea/CAE-VPR.

Aberrant DNA methylation patterns in sperm are a cause of embryonic failure and infertility, and could be a critical factor contributing to male recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). The purpose of this study was to reveal the potential effects of sperm DNA methylation levels in patients with male RSA. We compared sperm samples collected from fertile men and oligoasthenospermia patients. Differentially methylated sequences were identified by reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) methods. The DNA methylation levels of the two groups were compared and qRT-PCR was used to validate the expression of genes showing differential methylation. The results indicated that no difference in base distribution was observed between the normal group and the patient group. However, the chromosome methylation in these two groups was markedly different. One site was located on chromosome 8 and measured 150 bp, while the other sites were on chromosomes 9, 10, and X and measured 135 bp, 68 bp, and 136 bp, respectively. In particular, two genes were found to be hypermethylated in these patients, one gene was DYDC2 (placed in the differential methylation region of chromosome 10), and the other gene was NXF3 (located on chromosome X). Expression levels of DYDC2 and NXF3 in the RSA group were significantly lower than those in the normal group (P < 0.05). Collectively, these results demonstrated that changes in DNA methylation might be related to male RSA. Our findings provide important information regarding the potential role of sperm DNA methylation in human development.

Whether starchy and non-starchy vegetables have distinct impacts on health remains unknown. We prospectively investigated the intake of starchy and non-starchy vegetables in relation to mortality risk in a nationwide cohort. Diet was assessed using 24-h dietary recalls. Deaths were identified via the record linkage to the National Death Index. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95 % CI were calculated using Cox regression. During a median follow-up of 7·8 years, 4904 deaths were documented among 40 074 participants aged 18 years or older. Compared to those with no consumption, participants with daily consumption of ≥ 1 serving of non-starchy vegetables had a lower risk of mortality (HR = 0·76, 95 % CI 0·66, 0·88, Ptrend = 0·001). Dark-green and deep-yellow vegetables (HR = 0·79, 95 % CI 0·63, 0·99, Ptrend = 0·023) and other non-starchy vegetables (HR = 0·80, 95 % CI 0·70, 0·92, Ptrend = 0·004) showed similar results. Total starchy vegetable intake exhibited a marginally weak inverse association with mortality risk (HR = 0·89, 95 % CI 0·80, 1·00, Ptrend = 0·048), while potatoes showed a null association (HR = 0·93, 95 % CI 0·82, 1·06, Ptrend = 0·186). Restricted cubic spline analysis suggested a linear dose–response relationship between vegetable intake and death risk, with a plateau at over 300 and 200 g/d for total and non-starchy vegetables, respectively. Compared with starchy vegetables, non-starchy vegetables might be more beneficial to health, although both showed a protective association with mortality risk. The risk reduction in mortality plateaued at approximately 200 g/d for non-starchy vegetables and 300 g/d for total vegetables.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) asymptomatic cases are hard to identify, impeding transmissibility estimation. The value of COVID-19 transmissibility is worth further elucidation for key assumptions in further modelling studies. Through a population-based surveillance network, we collected data on 1342 confirmed cases with a 90-days follow-up for all asymptomatic cases. An age-stratified compartmental model containing contact information was built to estimate the transmissibility of symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. The difference in transmissibility of a symptomatic and asymptomatic case depended on age and was most distinct for the middle-age groups. The asymptomatic cases had a 66.7% lower transmissibility rate than symptomatic cases, and 74.1% (95% CI 65.9–80.7) of all asymptomatic cases were missed in detection. The average proportion of asymptomatic cases was 28.2% (95% CI 23.0–34.6). Simulation demonstrated that the burden of asymptomatic transmission increased as the epidemic continued and could potentially dominate total transmission. The transmissibility of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases is high and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases play a significant role in outbreaks.

The association between dietary Cu intake and mortality risk remains uncertain. We aimed to investigate the relationship of dietary Cu intake with all-cause mortality among Chinese adults. A total of 17 310 participants from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, a national ongoing open cohort of Chinese participants, were included in the analysis. Dietary intake was measured by three consecutive 24-h dietary recalls in combination with a weighing inventory over the same 3 d. The average intakes of the 3-d dietary macronutrients and micronutrients were calculated. The study outcome was all-cause mortality. During a median follow-up of 9·0 years, 1324 (7·6 %) participants died. After adjusting for sex, age, BMI, ever alcohol drinking, ever smoking, education levels, occupations, urban or rural residents, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and the intakes of fat, protein and carbohydrate, the association between dietary Cu intake and all-cause mortality followed a J-shape (P for nonlinearity = 0·047). When dietary Cu intake was assessed as quartiles, compared with those in the first quartile (<1·60 mg/d), the adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality were 0·87 (95 % CI (0·71, 1·07)), 0·98 (95 % CI (0·79, 1·21)) and 1·49 (95 % CI (1·19, 1·86)), respectively, in participants in the second (1·60–<1·83 mg/d), third (1·83–<2·09 mg/d) and fourth (≥2·09 mg/d) quartiles. A series of subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses showed similar results. Overall, our findings emphasised the importance of maintaining optimal dietary Cu intake levels for prevention of premature death.