We first sequenced and characterised the complete mitochondrial genome of Toxocara apodeme, then studied the evolutionary relationship of the species within Toxocaridae. The complete mitochondrial genome was amplified using PCR with 14 specific primers. The mitogenome length was 14303 bp in size, including 12 PCGs (encoding 3,423 amino acids), 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs, and 2 NCRs, with 68.38% A+T contents. The mt genomes of T. apodemi had relatively compact structures with 11 intergenic spacers and 5 overlaps. Comparative analyses of the nucleotide sequences of complete mt genomes showed that T. apodemi had higher identities with T. canis than other congeners. A sliding window analysis of 12 PCGs among 5 Toxocara species indicated that nad4 had the highest sequence divergence, and cox1 was the least variable gene. Relative synonymous codon usage showed that UUG, ACU, CCU, CGU, and UCU most frequently occurred in the complete genomes of T. apodemi. The Ka/Ks ratio showed that all Toxocara mt genes were subject to purification selection. The largest genetic distance between T. apodemi and the other 4 congeneric species was found in nad2, and the smallest was found in cox2. Phylogenetic analyses based on the concatenated amino acid sequences of 12 PCGs demonstrated that T. apodemi formed a distinct branch and was always a sister taxon to other congeneric species. The present study determined the complete mt genome sequences of T. apodemi, which provide novel genetic markers for further studies of the taxonomy, population genetics, and systematics of the Toxocaridae nematodes.

The laboratory generation and diagnosis of uniform near-critical-density (NCD) plasmas play critical roles in various studies and applications, such as fusion science, high energy density physics, astrophysics as well as relativistic electron beam generation. Here we successfully generated the quasistatic NCD plasma sample by heating a low-density tri-cellulose acetate (TCA) foam with the high-power-laser-driven hohlraum radiation. The temperature of the hohlraum is determined to be 20 eV by analyzing the spectra obtained with the transmission grating spectrometer. The single-order diffraction grating was employed to eliminate the high-order disturbance. The temperature of the heated foam is determined to be T = 16.8 ± 1.1 eV by analyzing the high-resolution spectra obtained with a flat-field grating spectrometer. The electron density of the heated foam is about $N_e=4.0\pm 0.3\times {10}^{20}{\text{cm}}^{-3}$ under the reasonable assumption of constant mass density.

To accelerate high-intensity heavy-ion beams to high energy in the booster ring (BRing) at the High-Intensity Heavy-Ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) project, we take the typical reference particle 238U35+, which can be accelerated from an injection energy of 17 MeV/u to the maximal extraction energy of 830 MeV/u, as an example to study the basic processes of longitudinal beam dynamics, including beam capture, acceleration, and bunch merging. The voltage amplitude, the synchronous phase, and the frequency program of the RF system during the operational cycle were given, and the beam properties such as bunch length, momentum spread, longitudinal beam emittance, and beam loss were derived, firstly. Then, the beam properties under different voltage amplitude and synchronous phase errors were also studied, and the results were compared with the cases without any errors. Next, the beam properties with the injection energy fluctuation were also studied. The tolerances of the RF errors and injection energy fluctuation were dictated based on the CISP simulations. Finally, the effect of space charge at the low injection energy with different beam intensities on longitudinal emittance and beam loss was evaluated.

Mineral chabazite has shown the unusual ability to surface template nanometal particles, especially Ag. A chabazite analog was synthesized from delaminated metakaolin. The chabazite formed retained the platy morphology of the base clay. This morphology is ideal for displaying surface-supported nanometal particles. The synthetic chabazite analog demonstrated the ability to form and support large concentrations of Ag nanoparticles, as observed in the related natural mineral. Due to greater Al content, the synthetic chabazite manifests significantly improved capacity for the formation of such Ag nanoparticles. As in the case of the mineral chabazite, surface Ag nanoparticles of high uniformity were observed in the range of 5–6 nm.

For a hypersonic-speed aircraft with a flat fuselage structure that has narrow space for a traditional wheel-type landing gear retraction, a novel type of wheel-ski landing gear is designed, which is different from traditional landing gears in force distribution and actuation methods. In order to capture the direction control performance of an aircraft with the wheel-ski landing gear, the aircraft ground taxiing nonlinear dynamic mathematical model is built based on a certain type of aircraft data. The experiment of the wheel-ski landing gear actuator and the differential brake control system is carried out to verify that the electric wheel-ski actuator model with the pressure sensor is in good agreement with the test results, indicating the model validity and the speediness of the differential brake response. Then a new fuzzy combined direction rectifying control law is designed based on the optimisation method and the fuzzy control theory. Comparing with the PD wheel-ski differential brake control, the direction rectifying efficiencies increase higher than 140% during the whole taxiing process. In addition, the combined control law can also decrease the overshoots of the yaw angle responses effectively. Finally, the stability and robustness of the designed combined direction control law are verified under various working conditions.

This paper builds a patent-based knowledge graph, patent-KG, to represent the knowledge facts in patents for engineering design. The arising patent-KG approach proposes a new unsupervised mechanism to extract knowledge facts in a patent, by searching the attention graph in language models. The extracted entities are compared with other benchmarks in the criteria of recall rate. The result reaches the highest 0.8 recall rate in the standard list of mechanical engineering related technical terms, which means the highest coverage of engineering words.

Developmental origins of health and disease research have cemented relationships between the early-life environment and later risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). However, there is limited translation of this knowledge in developing-economy nations, such as the Cook Islands, that carry exceptionally high NCD burdens. Considering the evidence, Cook Islands leaders identified a need for increased community awareness of the importance of early-life nutrition. Using a community-based participatory research approach, this study aimed to engage Cook Islands community representatives in the co-construction of a contextually relevant early-life nutrition resource. A booklet distributed to mothers in Australia and New Zealand was used as a starting point. Ten semi-structured focus groups (n = 60) explored views regarding the existing resource and options for contextual adaptation. Three core themes were identified: knowledge of the importance of early-life nutrition, recognition of the need for an early-life nutrition resource and the importance of resources being context specific. A draft booklet was created based on these discussions. Participants were invited to give feedback via a second round of focus groups. This confirmed that the voice of the community was represented in the draft booklet. Suggestions for additional material not included in the original resource were also identified. We report on the process and outcomes of the co-construction with community representatives of a resource that has the potential to be used to stimulate community-level discussion about the importance of early-life nutrition. It is crucial that communities have an active voice in research and in making decisions about interventions for their population.

This work proposes and analyzes a family of spatially inhomogeneous epidemic models. This is our first effort to use stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) to model epidemic dynamics with spatial variations and environmental noise. After setting up the problem, the existence and uniqueness of solutions of the underlying SPDEs are examined. Then, definitions of permanence and extinction are given, and certain sufficient conditions are provided for permanence and extinction. Our hope is that this paper will open up windows for investigation of epidemic models from a new angle.

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic heavy metal that poses a threat to the health of humans and animals. It can cause serious damage to the small intestine, which is the main absorption site of Cd and the primary target organ after oral administration. Our previous study found that zinc chelate of hydroxy analogue of methionine (Zn-HMTB), a new type of feed additive, decreased Cd accumulation in the liver and kidneys. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Zn-HMTB on Cd absorption and Cd-induced toxicity in the small intestine of piglets. Twenty-four piglets (Landrace × Large White, 13.22 ± 0.58 kg BW) were randomly divided into four dietary treatment groups: basal diet, and diets containing 30 mg/kg Cd from CdCl2 and 0, 100 or 200 mg/kg Zn from Zn-HMTB. The experiment lasted 27 days. The feed intake and final BW of each piglet were recorded at the end of the experiment. Gastrointestinal (GI) tract tissue and samples of liver, kidney, spleen, heart, lung and longissimus muscle tissue and faeces were collected. The concentrations of Cd and metal trace elements in the GI tract and organs were analysed, as was the relative messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of inflammatory cytokines and metal element transporters in the small intestine, and epithelial apoptosis in the small intestine. The results showed that, compared with Cd-treated piglets, piglets in the Zn-HMTB and Cd cotreatment groups had less Cd deposition in the stomach, ileum, caecum, colon, liver, kidneys, spleen, lungs, heart and muscles (P < 0.05), and lower Cd concentrations in faeces (P < 0.05), suggesting that Zn-HMTB increased Cd absorption and the excretion of Cd in other forms (possibly urine). Zinc chelate of hydroxy analogue of methionine increased Zn deposition in the jejunum and the relative mRNA expression of divalent metal transporters 1 and zinc transporter 5 in the duodenum (P < 0.05), indicating that Zn-HMTB may promote the absorption and transportation of Cd and Zn together by upregulating metal element transporters. Competition between Zn and Cd may be responsible for accelerating Cd excretion. Furthermore, Zn-HMTB reduced Cd-induced apoptosis of enterocytes and inflammatory stimuli in the small intestine, suggesting that Zn-HMTB reduced Cd-induced toxicity to the small intestine. These results suggest that Zn-HMTB can be helpful in decreasing Cd accumulation in the GI tract and organs of piglets and relieving Cd-induced toxicity to the small intestine but cannot reduce the absorption of Cd.