A multiresonance metasurface antenna is proposed which has wide bandwidth and low-profile. The characteristic mode theory is used to design antenna structure. Three ideal modes are obtained by adjusting the mode currents to optimize the radiation performance of the antenna. The characteristic mode analysis is used to model, analyze, and optimize the antenna, revealing the physical characteristics of the metasurface antenna. The slot is not only used as the feeding structure for exciting characteristic modes but also introduces a slot mode. Combining the slot mode with the metasurface modes, the bandwidth of the antenna is broadened. The antenna element has a relative bandwidth of 43.7%. To obtain higher gain, a 2 × 2 antenna array is proposed. The antenna array is simulated, fabricated, and measured. The results show that the relative bandwidth of the proposed metasurface antenna array is 31.6% with the gain of 12.3–15.8 dBi over the operating bandwidth.

In this paper, the notion of locally algebraic intersection structure is introduced for algebraic L-domains. Essentially, every locally algebraic intersection structure is a family of sets, which forms an algebraic L-domain ordered by inclusion. It is shown that there is a locally algebraic intersection structure which is order-isomorphic to a given algebraic L-domain. This result extends the classic Stone’s representation theorem for Boolean algebras to the case of algebraic L-domains. In addition, it can be seen that many well-known representations of algebraic L-domains, such as logical algebras, information systems, closure spaces, and formal concept analysis, can be analyzed in the framework of locally algebraic intersection structures. Then, a set-theoretic uniformity across different representations of algebraic L-domains is established.

Let $f: M\rightarrow M$ be a $C^{1+\alpha }$ diffeomorphism on an $m_0$-dimensional compact smooth Riemannian manifold M and $\mu $ a hyperbolic ergodic f-invariant probability measure. This paper obtains an upper bound for the stable (unstable) pointwise dimension of $\mu $, which is given by the unique solution of an equation involving the sub-additive measure-theoretic pressure. If $\mu $ is a Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen (SRB) measure, then the Kaplan–Yorke conjecture is true under some additional conditions and the Lyapunov dimension of $\mu $ can be approximated gradually by the Hausdorff dimension of a sequence of hyperbolic sets $\{\Lambda _n\}_{n\geq 1}$. The limit behaviour of the Carathéodory singular dimension of $\Lambda _n$ on the unstable manifold with respect to the super-additive singular valued potential is also studied.

This paper presents a broadband circularly polarized (CP) antenna array for millimeter-wave applications, and the antenna array has the advantages of wide impedance bandwidth (IBW), novel CP design, and low profile. The antenna unit consists of a two-layer substrate and two pairs of magnetoelectric dipoles. Stepped microstrip lines coupled by rectangular slits form a feeder network for easy integration. The axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) is extended because a pair of parasitic patches is loaded and an elliptical perturbation is added. The simulation results show that the antenna has an ARBW of 18.6% (26.4–31.9 GHz) and an IBW of 45.5% (20.6–32.7 GHz), with a gain greater than 7.11 dBic in the IBW. To improve the gain of the antenna, a 2 × 2 antenna array is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results show that the array has an ARBW of 16.6% (26.42–31.21 GHz), an IBW of 41.6% (22.28–33.97 GHz), a peak gain of 13.89 dBic in the IBW, the cross-polarization levels in the xoz-plane and yoz-plane are above 20 dB, and a radiation efficiency greater than 89%.

Accurately predicting neurosyphilis prior to a lumbar puncture (LP) is critical for the prompt management of neurosyphilis. However, a valid and reliable model for this purpose is still lacking. This study aimed to develop a nomogram for the accurate identification of neurosyphilis in patients with syphilis. The training cohort included 9,504 syphilis patients who underwent initial neurosyphilis evaluation between 2009 and 2020, while the validation cohort comprised 526 patients whose data were prospectively collected from January 2021 to September 2021. Neurosyphilis was observed in 35.8% (3,400/9,504) of the training cohort and 37.6% (198/526) of the validation cohort. The nomogram incorporated factors such as age, male gender, neurological and psychiatric symptoms, serum RPR, a mucous plaque of the larynx and nose, a history of other STD infections, and co-diabetes. The model exhibited good performance with concordance indexes of 0.84 (95% CI, 0.83–0.85) and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.78–0.86) in the training and validation cohorts, respectively, along with well-fitted calibration curves. This study developed a precise nomogram to predict neurosyphilis risk in syphilis patients, with potential implications for early detection prior to an LP.

The production and industrial use of asbestos cement and other asbestos-containing materials have been restricted in most countries because of the potential detrimental effects on human health and the environment. Chrysotile is the most common form of asbestos and investigations into how to recycle this serpentine phyllosilicate mineral have attracted extensive attention. Chrysotile asbestos tailings can be transformed thermally, at high temperature, by in situ carbothermal reduction (CR). The CR method aims to maximize use of the chrysotile available and uses high temperatures and carbon to change the mineral form and structure of the chrysotile asbestos tailings. When chrysotile asbestos is employed as the raw material and coke (carbon) powder is used as the reducing agent for CR transformation, stable, high-temperature composites consisting of forsterite, stishovite, and silicon carbide are formed. Forsterite (Mg2SiO4) was the most abundant crystalline phase formed in samples heat treated below 1500ºC. At 1600ºC, forsterite was exhausted through decomposition and β-SiC formed by reduction of stishovite. A larger proportion of β-SiC was generated as the carbon content was increased. This research revealed that both temperature and carbon addition play key roles in the transformation of chrysotile asbestos tailings.

Objective. The aim of the study is to investigate the potential role of keratoconus (KC) in the diagnosis of keratoconus (KC). Methods. GSE151631 and GSE77938 were downloaded from the comprehensive gene expression database (GEO). By using the random forest model (RF), support vector machine model (SVM), and generalized linear model (GLM), important immune-related genes were identified as biomarkers for KC diagnosis. Results. Through the LASSO, RFE, and RF algorithms and comparing the three sets of DEGs, a total of 8 overlapping DEGs were obtained. We took 8 DEGs as the final optimal combination of DEGs: AREG, BBC3, DUSP2, map3k8, Smad7, CDKN1A, JUN, and LIF. Conclusion. Abnormal cell proliferation, apoptosis, and autophagy defects are related to KC, which may be the etiology and potential target of KC.

The global transition towards diets high in calories has contributed to 2.1 billion people becoming overweight, or obese, which damages male reproduction and harms offspring. Recently, more and more studies have shown that paternal exposure to stress closely affects the health of offspring in an intergenerational and transgenerational way. SET Domain Containing 2 (SETD2), a key epigenetic gene, is highly conserved among species, is a crucial methyltransferase for converting histone 3 lysine 36 dimethylation (H3K36me2) into histone 3 lysine 36 trimethylation (H3K36me3), and plays an important regulator in the response to stress. In this study, we compared patterns of SETD2 expression and the H3K36me3 pattern in pre-implantation embryos derived from normal or obese mice induced by high diet. The results showed that SETD2 mRNA was significantly higher in the high-fat diet (HFD) group than the control diet (CD) group at the 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, and 16-cell stages, and at the morula and blastocyst stages. The relative levels of H3K36me3 in the HFD group at the 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, 16-cell, morula stage, and blastocyst stage were significantly higher than in the CD group. These results indicated that dietary changes in parental generation (F0) male mice fed a HFD were traceable in SETD2/H3K36me3 in embryos, and that a paternal high-fat diet brings about adverse effects for offspring that might be related to SETD2/H3K36me3, which throws new light on the effect of paternal obesity on offspring from an epigenetic perspective.

We study numerically the characteristics of fluid–fluid displacement in simple mixed-wet porous micromodels using a dynamic pore network model. The porous micromodel consists of distinct water-wet and oil-wet regions, whose fractions are varied systematically to yield a variety of displacement patterns over a wide range of capillary numbers. We find that the impact of mixed-wettability is most prominent at low capillary numbers, and it depends on the complex interplay between wettability fraction and the intrinsic contact angle of the water-wet regions. For example, the fractal dimension of the displacement pattern is a monotonically increasing function of wettability fraction in flow cells with strongly water-wet clusters, but it becomes non-monotonic with respect to wettability fraction in flow cells with weakly water-wet clusters. Additionally, mixed-wettability also manifests itself in the injection pressure signature, which exhibits fluctuations especially at low wettability fraction. Specifically, preferential filling of water-wet regions leads to reduced effective permeability and higher injection pressure, even at vanishingly small capillary numbers. Finally, we demonstrate that scaling analyses based on a weighted average description of the overall wetting state of the mixed-wet system can effectively capture the variations in observed displacement pattern morphology.

For a non-conformal repeller $\Lambda $ of a $C^{1+\alpha }$ map f preserving an ergodic measure $\mu $ of positive entropy, this paper shows that the Lyapunov dimension of $\mu $ can be approximated gradually by the Carathéodory singular dimension of a sequence of horseshoes. For a $C^{1+\alpha }$ diffeomorphism f preserving a hyperbolic ergodic measure $\mu $ of positive entropy, if $(f, \mu )$ has only two Lyapunov exponents $\unicode{x3bb} _u(\mu )>0>\unicode{x3bb} _s(\mu )$, then the Hausdorff or lower box or upper box dimension of $\mu $ can be approximated by the corresponding dimension of the horseshoes $\{\Lambda _n\}$. The same statement holds true if f is a $C^1$ diffeomorphism with a dominated Oseledet’s splitting with respect to $\mu $.

The vortex force map method for incompressible viscous flows with multiple bodies is derived in this work. The method breaks the fluid force into inertial, vortex-pressure, viscous-pressure and skin-friction components, and it could be used to analyse the fluid dynamic forces on individual bodies in a multi-body assembly. For the first time, we provide a graphical representation of the vortex-pressure force – the vortex force map – for individual bodies in a multi-body assembly. We have shown that the vortex force map in a multi-body set-up differs from single-bodied counterparts from modifications to their hypothetical potential through a nonlinear cross-coupling, and that the inertial and viscous-pressure contributions contain influences from other bodies explicitly. We then demonstrate the multi-body vortex force decomposition method with a wing–flap starting flow problem using computational fluid dynamics data, identifying the positive and negative force-generating critical regions or directions. It is found that the dominant force is the vortex-pressure force, and the force variation against time is closely related to the evolution of the vortex structures. Furthermore, we showed that the existence of another body significantly alters the force contribution roles of vortices in the flow.

Fluid–fluid displacement in porous media has been viewed through the lens of Lenormand's phase diagram since the late 1980s. This diagram suggests that the character of the flow is controlled by two dimensionless parameters: the capillary number and the viscosity ratio. It is by now well known, however, that the wettability of the system plays a key role in determining the pore-scale displacement mechanisms and macroscopic invasion patterns. Here, we endow Lenormand's diagram with the impact of wettability using dynamic and quasi-static pore-network models. By using the fractal dimension and the ratio of characteristic viscous and capillary pressures we delineate the five principal displacement regimes within the extended phase diagram: stable displacement, viscous fingering, invasion percolation, cooperative pore filling and corner flow. We discuss the results in the context of pattern formation, displacement-front dynamics, pore-scale disorder and displacement efficiency.

The present study evaluated effects of dietary supplementation with tryptophan (Trp) on muscle growth, protein synthesis and antioxidant capacity in hybrid catfish Pelteobagrus vachelli♀ × Leiocassis longirostris♂. Fish were fed six different diets containing 2·6 (control), 3·1, 3·7, 4·2, 4·7 and 5·6 g Trp/kg diet for 56 d, respectively. Results showed that dietary Trp significantly (1) improved muscle protein content, fibre density and frequency of fibre diameter; (2) up-regulated the mRNA levels of PCNA, myf5, MyoD1, MyoG, MRF4, IGF-I, IGF-II, IGF-IR, PIK3Ca, TOR, 4EBP1 and S6K1; (3) increased phosphorylation levels of AKT, TOR and S6K1; (4) decreased contents of MDA and PC, and increased activities of CAT, GST, GR, ASA and AHR; (5) up-regulated mRNA levels of CuZnSOD, CAT, GST, GPx, GCLC and Nrf2, and decreased Keap1 mRNA level; (6) increased nuclear Nrf2 protein level and the intranuclear antioxidant response element-binding ability, and reduced Keap1 protein level. These results indicated that dietary Trp improved muscle growth, protein synthesis as well as antioxidant capacity, which might be partly related to myogenic regulatory factors, IGF/PIK3Ca/AKT/TOR and Keap1/Nrf2 signalling pathways. Finally, based on the quadratic regression analysis of muscle protein and MDA contents, the optimal Trp requirements of hybrid catfish (21·82–39·64 g) were estimated to be 3·94 and 3·93 g Trp/kg diet (9·57 and 9·54 g/kg of dietary protein), respectively.

Having enterprises engaged in environmentally friendly behavior is an important part of reducing negative environmental impacts. This study makes a quantitative analysis against the backdrop of China's transitional economic system. The results show that politically-connected enterprises significantly reduce environmental expenditure, but this only holds for state-owned enterprises; private enterprises with political connections spend significantly more. Analysis of the efficiency of environmental expenditure indicates that, for private enterprises, environmental spending is used as a way to maintain political connections, with rent-seeking as the likely motivation. Politically-connected private enterprises have not reduced their emissions to the same extent as state-owned enterprises, despite increased expenditure. Given the scale of environmental degradation in China during a period of massive economic and social upheaval, the results of this analysis provide a quantitative case for policy change: governments should shift focus to the results that environmental spending produces.

The unsteady forces acting on a body depend strongly on the local flow structures such as vortices. A quantitative understanding of the contribution of these structures to the instantaneous overall force is of fundamental significance. In the present study, a three-dimensional (3-D) vortex force map (VFM) method, extended from a two-dimensional (2-D) one, is used to provide better insight into the complex 3-D flow dynamics. The VFM vectors are obtained from solutions of potential equations and used to build the 3-D VFMs where the critical regions and directions associated with significant positive or negative contributions to the forces are identified. Using the existing velocity/vorticity field near the body, these VFMs can be used to obtain the body forces. A decomposed form of the force formula is also derived to separate the correction term contributed from the uncaptured vortices (close to or far away from the body). The present method is applied to the starting flow of a delta wing at high angle of attack, where LEVs are enhanced and stabilized by an axial flow effect. The analogy between the normal force of a slender delta wing and that of a 2-D flat plate with a steadily growing span is demonstrated via the VFM analysis. We find, for this application, that the force evolution exhibits some similar behaviour to a 2-D airfoil starting flow and, surprisingly, the force contribution mainly comes from the conical vortex sheet rather than the central core. Moreover, a quantitative understanding of the influence of LEVs in different evolution regimes on the body force is demonstrated.