We report the experimental results of the commissioning phase in the 10 PW laser beamline of the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF). The peak power reaches 2.4 PW on target without the last amplifying during the experiment. The laser energy of 72 ± 9 J is directed to a focal spot of approximately 6 μm diameter (full width at half maximum) in 30 fs pulse duration, yielding a focused peak intensity around 2.0 × 1021 W/cm2. The first laser-proton acceleration experiment is performed using plain copper and plastic targets. High-energy proton beams with maximum cut-off energy up to 62.5 MeV are achieved using copper foils at the optimum target thickness of 4 μm via target normal sheath acceleration. For plastic targets of tens of nanometers thick, the proton cut-off energy is approximately 20 MeV, showing ring-like or filamented density distributions. These experimental results reflect the capabilities of the SULF-10 PW beamline, for example, both ultrahigh intensity and relatively good beam contrast. Further optimization for these key parameters is underway, where peak laser intensities of 1022–1023 W/cm2 are anticipated to support various experiments on extreme field physics.

Excessive iodine can lead to goiters. However, the relationship between the water iodine concentration (WIC) and goiter rate (GR) is unclear. This study aims to explore the factors that influence children’s GR in areas with high WIC and analyse the threshold value of the GR increase associated with the WIC. According to the monitoring of the areas with high WIC in China in 2018–2020, a total of 54 050 children in eight high water iodine provinces were chosen. Drinking water, urine and edible salt samples of children were collected. The thyroid volume (Tvol) was measured. A generalised additive model (GAM) was used to analyse the relationship between the WIC and GR in children. Among the 54 050 children in areas with high WIC, the overall GR was 3·34 %, the median of water iodine concentration was 127·0 µg/l, the median of urinary iodine concentration was 318 µg/l and the non-iodised salt coverage rate (NISCR) was 63·51 %. According to the GAM analysis results, water iodine and urinary iodine are factors that influence the Tvol and GR, while the NISCR affects only the GR. When the WIC was more than 420 µg/l or the urinary iodine concentration was more than 800 µg/l, the GR increased rapidly. When the NISCR reached more than 85 %, the GR was the lowest. Thus, in areas with high WIC, WIC more than 420 µg/l may increase the risk of goiter, and the NISCR should be increased to over 85 % to avoid goiters in children.

The tobacco cutworm Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a polyphagous pest with a highly selective and sensitive chemosensory system involved in complex physiological behaviors such as searching for food sources, feeding, courtship, and oviposition. However, effective management strategies for controlling the insect pest populations under threshold levels are lacking. Therefore, there is an urgent need to formulate eco-friendly pest control strategies based on the disruption of the insect chemosensory system. In this study, we identified 158 putative chemosensory genes based on transcriptomic and genomic data for S. litura, including 45 odorant-binding proteins (OBPs, nine were new), 23 chemosensory proteins (CSPs), 60 odorant receptors (ORs, three were new), and 30 gustatory receptors (GRs, three were new), a number higher than those reported by previous transcriptome studies. Subsequently, we constructed phylogenetic trees based on these genes in moths and analyzed the dynamic expression of various genes in head capsules across larval instars using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Nine genes–SlitOBP8, SlitOBP9, SlitOBP25, SlitCSP1, SlitCSP7, SlitCSP18, SlitOR34, SlitGR240, and SlitGR242–were highly expressed in the heads of 3- to 5-day-old S. litura larvae. The genes differentially expressed in olfactory organs during larval development might play crucial roles in the chemosensory system of S. litura larvae. Our findings substantially expand the gene inventory for S. litura and present potential target genes for further studies on larval feeding in S. litura.

Palladium (Pd) and gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) hybridized on two types of carbon supports, graphene and granular activated carbon (GAC), were shown to be promising catalysts for the sustainable hydrodehalogenation of aqueous trichloroethylene (TCE). These catalysts are capable of degrading TCE more rapidly than commercial Pd-on-GAC catalysts. The catalysts were synthesized at room temperature without the use of any environmentally unfriendly chemicals. Pd was chosen for its catalytic potency to break down TCE, while Au acts as a strong promoter of the catalytic activity of Pd. The results indicate that both graphene and GAC are favorable supports for the NPs due to high surface-to-volume ratios, unique surface properties, and the prevention of NP aggregation. The properties of NP catalysts were characterized using electron microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. The TCE degradation results indicate that the GAC-supported catalysts have a higher rate of TCE removal than the commercial Pd-on-GAC catalyst, and the degradation rate is greatly increased when using graphene-supported samples.

In this paper, a triple-wideband bandpass filter (BPF) with controllable bandwidths based on two multi-mode stub-loaded resonators (MMSLRs) and a triple-mode resonator is presented. The MMSLR is loaded with two identical folded open-ended stubs and a T-shaped stub. Each passband of the tri-band BPF is formed by four resonant modes, which provide sufficient bandwidths to meet various application requirement. By adjusting the lengths of open-ended stubs, three passband bandwidths can be controlled individually. The center frequencies of the triple-wideband BPF are allocated at 2.7, 3.67, and 5.44 GHz, with the 3 dB fractional bandwidths (FBWs) of 20.1, 14.7, and 26.3%. Among the three passbands, the highest one covers the 5 G WiFi band (5.15–5.85 GHz). The measured results of the proposed filter exhibit excellent agreement with simulated results.

We are concerned with sets of generic points for shift-invariant measures in the countable symbolic space. We measure the sizes of the sets by the Billingsley-Hausdorff dimensions defined by Gibbs measures. It is shown that the dimension of such a set is given by a variational principle involving the convergence exponent of the Gibbs measure and the relative entropy dimension of the Gibbs measure with respect to the invariant measure. This variational principle is different from that of the case of finite symbols, where the convergent exponent is zero and is not involved. An application is given to a class of expanding interval dynamical systems.

Porous carbon nanomaterials with significant capacitive performance were successfully prepared through a simple two-step process of thermal-polymerization and carbonization without an additional template. As a result, the as-prepared porous carbon nanomaterials of sample-A and sample-B exhibited an amorphous phase with low graphitization. And sample-A showed a moderate specific surface area of 476.39 m2/g, larger than that of sample-B (280.94 m2/g). The relatively high mass specific capacitance of 205.1 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s and 211 F/g at a current density of 4 A/g was obtained by sample-A, which are higher than those of sample-B (82.6 F/g at 5 mV/s and 78.6 F/g at 4 A/g). Sample-A also showed excellent conductivity and superior cyclic stability with 94.19% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles, which are also higher than those of sample-B. This work proposed a cost-effective, green, and promising strategy for the large-scale preparation of porous carbon nanomaterial electrodes.

Both fibronectin (FN) and filamentous actin (F-actin) fibers play a critical role for endothelial cells (ECs) in responding to shear stress and modulating cell alignment and functions. FN is dynamically coupled to the F-actin cytoskeleton via focal adhesions. However, it is unclear how ECs cooperatively remodel their subcellular FN matrix and intracellular F-actin cytoskeleton in response to shear stress. Current studies are hampered by the lack of a reliable and sensitive quantification method of FN orientation. In this study, we developed a MATLAB-based feature enhancement method to quantify FN and F-actin orientation. The role of F-actin in FN remodeling was also studied by treating ECs with cytochalasin D. We have demonstrated that FN and F-actin codistributed and coaligned parallel to the flow direction, and that F-actin alignment played an essential role in regulating FN alignment in response to shear stress. Our findings offer insight into how ECs cooperatively remodel their subcellular ECM and intracellular F-actin cytoskeleton in response to mechanical stimuli, and are valuable for vascular tissue engineering.

X-ray powder diffraction data, unit-cell parameters, and space group for menthyl lactate, C13H24O3, are reported [a = 5.522(6) Å, b = 11.795(8) Å, c = 17.780(6) Å, α = 50.632(3)°, β = 90.000(0)°, γ = 117.632(4)°, unit-cell volume V = 716.392(0) Å3, Z = 2, and space group P−1]. All measured lines were indexed and no detectable impurities were observed.

X-ray powder diffraction data, unit-cell parameters, and space group for monomenthyl succinate, C14H24O4, are reported [a = 19.352(2), b = 30.015(1), c = 5.277(0) Å, α = β = γ = 90°, unit-cell volume V = 3065.1(6) Å3, Z = 8, and space group Pba2]. All measured lines were indexed and are consistent with the Pba2 space group. No detectable impurities were observed.

It has been demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in the control of melanogenesis and hair color in mammals. By comparing miRNA expression profiles between brown and white alpaca skin, we previously identified miR508-3p as a differentially expressed miRNA suggesting its potential role in melanogenesis and hair color formation. The present study was conducted to determine the role of miR508-3p in melanogenesis in alpaca melanocytes. In situ hybridization showed that miR508-3p is abundantly present in the cytoplasma of alpaca melanocytes. miR508-3p was predicted to target the gene encoding microphthalmia transcription factor (MITF) and a luciferase reporter assay indicated that miR508-3p regulates MITF expression by directly targeting its 3′UTR. Overexpression of miR508-3p in alpaca melanocytes down-regulated MITF expression both at the messenger RNA and protein level and resulted in decreased expression of key melanogenic genes including tyrosinase and tyrosinase-related protein 2. Overexpression of miR508-3p in melanocytes also resulted in decreased melanin production including total alkali-soluble melanogenesis, eumelanogenesis and pheomelanogenesis. Results support a functional role of miR508-3p in regulating melanogenesis in alpaca melanocytes by directly targeting MITF.

Blazars (BL Lacertae objects and flat spectrum radio quasars) are strong γ-ray emitters, the γ-ray emissions are strongly beamed. In this work, we compiled a sample of Fermi blazars with available beaming factors, δR, to investigate the correlation between the γ-ray flux density, logfγ, and redshift, logz for the whole sample and the subclasses of the present sample. The analysis shows that there is no correlation between logfγ and logz for the observed γ-ray flux density, but there are strong correlations between the de-beamed flux densities, logfγdb and logz for the whole sample and the subclasses. Our results confirm that the γ-ray emissions are strongly beamed and imply that it is possible for one to use the radio beaming factor, δR for the beaming effect discussions in the γ-ray bands for Fermi blazars.

In this work, we investigated the correlation between the γ-ray luminosity, logLγ and the core-dominance parameter, log (1+R), for a sample of 124 Fermi blazars with available core and extended radio emissions. Our analysis shows that there is no correlation between the γ-ray luminosity, log Lγ and the core-dominance parameter, log (1+R). However, there is a closely linear correlation between log Lγ − log LExt and log (1+R), log Lγ−log LExt = (0.95 ± 0.08) log (1+R) + (2.72 ± 0.11), for the whole sample. The result suggests that the γ-ray emissions are composed of two components, one is beamed, the other is unbeamed.

COMPASS or BeiDou is the new satellite navigation system under construction in China. In this paper, the standalone performance of COMPASS is compared to the Global Positioning System (GPS), including: Single Point Positioning (SPP), differential positioning (DGPS and Differential COMPASS) and single epoch ambiguity resolution and positioning. Based on the results, it was found that COMPASS SPP performance is clearly worse than that of GPS, due to larger broadcast orbit and satellite clock errors, especially the latter. Differential positioning performance of COMPASS and GPS are essentially similar, with GPS marginally better. COMPASS single epoch ambiguity resolution performance is obviously better than that of GPS due to more observed satellites and the single epoch positioning performance of COMPASS and GPS are similar.

We consider sets of real numbers in [0, 1) with prescribed frequencies of partial quotients in their regular continued fraction expansions. It is shown that the Hausdorff dimensions of these sets, always bounded from below by 1/2, are given by a modified variational principle.