The formation process of the leading vortex ring in starting jets with uniform background co- and counter-flow has been studied numerically for $-0.5\leq R_v\leq 0.5$, where $R_v$ is the ratio of background velocity to jet velocity. For the cases with background counter-flow, the normal formation process of the leading vortex ring would be destroyed when $R_v<-0.4$, i.e. the trailing jet would overtake the leading vortex ring through the centre, a phenomenon reminiscent of vortex leapfrogging. As the velocity ratio $R_v$ increases, the formation number $F_{t^*}$ decreases from $9.6$ at $R_v=-0.4$ to $1.92$ at $R_v=0.5$. An analytical model based on the kinematic criterion has been developed so as to describe the relationship between the formation number $F_{t^*}$ and velocity ratio $R_v$. A linear relationship between the vortex core parameter and stroke ratio of starting jet ($\varepsilon \sim k_1L/D$) for the Norbury vortex ring has been established and used effectively to close the model. For co-flow with $0< R_v\leq 0.5$, the results from this model are consistent with the present numerical simulation and the experiments by Krueger et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 556, 2006, pp. 147–166). For counter-flow, two different equations are proposed for $-0.4\leq R_v\leq -0.2$ and $-0.2< R_v<0$, respectively.

We present the third data release from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project. The release contains observations of 32 pulsars obtained using the 64-m Parkes “Murriyang” radio telescope. The data span is up to 18 years with a typical cadence of 3 weeks. This data release is formed by combining an updated version of our second data release with ∼ 3 years of more recent data primarily obtained using an ultra-wide-bandwidth receiver system that operates between 704 and 4032 MHz. We provide calibrated pulse profiles, flux-density dynamic spectra, pulse times of arrival, and initial pulsar timing models. We describe methods for processing such wide-bandwidth observations, and compare this data release with our previous release.

Drag force acting on a particle is vital for the accurate simulation of turbulent multiphase flows, but the robust drag model is still an open issue. Fully resolved direct numerical simulation (DNS) with an immersed boundary method is performed to investigate the drag force on saltating particles in wall turbulence over a sediment bed. Results show that, for saltating particles, the drag force along the particle trajectories cannot be estimated accurately by traditional drag models originally developed for an isolated particle that depends on the particle-wall separation distance or local volume fraction in addition to the particle Reynolds number. The errors between the models and DNS are especially clear during the descending phase of the particles. Through simple theoretical analysis and DNS data fitting, we present a corrected factor using the classical, particle Reynolds number dependent drag force model as the benchmark model. The new drag model, which takes the particle vertical velocity into account, can reasonably predict the mean drag force obtained by DNS along a particle trajectory.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the clinical characteristics of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) PCR re-positivity after recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Patients (n = 1391) from Guangzhou, China, who had recovered from COVID-19 were recruited between 7 September 2021 and 11 March 2022. Data on epidemiology, symptoms, laboratory test results and treatment were analysed. In this study, 42.7% of recovered patients had re-positive result. Most re-positive patients were asymptomatic, did not have severe comorbidities, and were not contagious. The re-positivity rate was 39%, 46%, 11% and 25% in patients who had received inactivated, mRNA, adenovirus vector and recombinant subunit vaccines, respectively. Seven independent risk factors for testing re-positive were identified, and a predictive model was constructed using these variables. The predictors of re-positivity were COVID-19 vaccination status, previous SARs-CoV-12 infection prior to the most recent episode, renal function, SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgM antibody levels and white blood cell count. The predictive model could benefit the control of the spread of COVID-19.

A new approach to target development for laboratory astrophysics experiments at high-power laser facilities is presented. With the dawn of high-power lasers, laboratory astrophysics has emerged as a field, bringing insight into physical processes in astrophysical objects, such as the formation of stars. An important factor for success in these experiments is targetry. To date, targets have mainly relied on expensive and challenging microfabrication methods. The design presented incorporates replaceable machined parts that assemble into a structure that defines the experimental geometry. This can make targets cheaper and faster to manufacture, while maintaining robustness and reproducibility. The platform is intended for experiments on plasma flows, but it is flexible and may be adapted to the constraints of other experimental setups. Examples of targets used in experimental campaigns are shown, including a design for insertion in a high magnetic field coil. Experimental results are included, demonstrating the performance of the targets.

Recently, Scholten and Read (2014) found new violations of dominance in intertemporal choice. Although adding a small receipt before a delayed payment or adding a small delayed receipt after an immediate receipt makes the prospect objectively better, it decreases the preference for that prospect (better is worse). Conversely, although adding a small payment before a delayed receipt or adding a small delayed payment after an immediate payment makes the prospect objectively worse, it increases the preference for that prospect (worse is better). Scholten and Read explained these violations in terms of a preference for improvement. However, to produce violations such as these, we find that the temporal sequences need not be constructed as Scholten and Read suggested. In this study, adding a small receipt before a dated receipt (thus constructed as improving) or adding a receipt after a dated payment (thus constructed as improving) decreases preferences for those prospects. Conversely, adding a small payment after a dated receipt (thus constructed as deteriorating) or adding a small payment before a delayed payment (thus constructed as deteriorating) increases preferences for those prospects.

The formation and evolution process of the outer vortex ring (denoted as OV0) in annular starting jets has been studied numerically at stroke ratio $3\leqslant L_m/D\leqslant 8$, $\beta \leqslant 0.8$ and Reynolds number $400\leqslant Re_{\triangle R}\leqslant 1400$, where $D$ is the outer diameter of orifice, $L_m$ is the length of the fluid column, $\beta$ and $\triangle R$ are the ratio and difference between inner and outer radii of the annular orifice, respectively. The initial formation process of OV0 is found to be similar to that of the leading vortex ring in a circular starting jet, but the circulation strength is relatively lower and decreases gradually with increasing $\beta$. The pinch-off process will also appear after OV0 grows to a certain size but is different from that of the circular starting jet. On one hand, OV0 is stretched and deformed by the strain field generated by the trailing jet's instability, and vorticity would be shed. On the other hand, OV0 accelerates the irrotational fluids around it under viscous action so as to form the induced velocity field, which would consume energy causing it to shed vorticity further under the limit of the Kelvin–Benjamin variational principle. Furthermore, OV0 would eventually become a stable vortex ring whose non-dimensional circulation ($\varGamma /(U_{0max}D$)) is found to be between 0.59–0.62 and it would not change with different $L_m/D$ at $\beta =0.5$, which is much less than the 2–2.5 of circular starting jets.

Although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have produced remarkable responses in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, receivers still have a relatively low response rate. Initial response assessment by conventional imaging and evaluation criteria is often unable to identify whether patients can achieve durable clinical benefit from ICIs. Overall, there are sparse effective biomarkers identified to screen NSCLC patients responding to this therapy. A lot of studies have reported that patients with specific gene mutations may benefit from or resist to immunotherapy. However, the single gene mutation may be not effective enough to predict the benefit from immunotherapy for patients. With the advancement in sequencing technology, further studies indicate that many mutations often co-occur and suggest a drastic transformation of tumour microenvironment phenotype. Moreover, co-mutation events have been reported to synergise to activate or suppress signalling pathways of anti-tumour immune response, which also indicates a potential target for combining intervention. Thus, the different mutation profile (especially co-mutation) of patients may be an important concern for predicting or promoting the efficacy of ICIs. However, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge of this field until now. Therefore, in this study, we reviewed and elaborated the value of cancer mutation profile in predicting the efficacy of immunotherapy and analysed the underlying mechanisms, to provide an alternative way for screening dominant groups, and thereby, optimising individualised therapy for NSCLC patients.

Let $j_n$ be the modular function obtained by applying the nth Hecke operator on the classical j-invariant. For $n>m\ge 2$ , we prove that between any two zeros of $j_m$ on the unit circle of the fundamental domain, there is a zero of $j_n$ .

Different from developed countries, there is a paucity of research examining how the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) and Mediterranean diets relate to lipids in less-developed ethnic minority regions (LEMR). A total of 83 081 participants from seven ethnic groups were retrieved from the baseline data of the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort study, which was conducted in less-developed Southwest China between May 2018 and September 2019. Multivariable linear regression models were then used to examine the associations of the DASH and alternative Mediterranean diet (AMED) scores, assessed by modified DASH score and AMED, as well as their components with total cholesterol (TC), LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, TAG and TC/HDL-cholesterol. The DASH scores were negatively associated with TC, HDL-cholesterol and TAG. Comparing the highest quintiles with the lowest DASH scores, TC decreased 0·0708 (95 % CI −0·0923, −0·0493) mmol/l, HDL-cholesterol decreased 0·0380 (95 % CI −0·0462, −0·0299) mmol/l and TAG decreased 0·0668 (95 % CI −0·0994, −0·0341) mmol/l. The AMED scores were negatively associated with TC, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol. Comparing the highest quintiles with the lowest AMED scores, TC decreased 0·0816 (95 % CI −0·1035, −0·0597) mmol/l, LDL-cholesterol decreased 0·0297 (95 % CI −0·0477, −0·0118) mmol/l and HDL-cholesterol decreased 0·0275 (95 % CI −0·0358, −0·0192) mmol/l. Although both the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet were negatively associated with blood lipids, those associations showed different patterns in LEMR, particularly for TAG and HDL-cholesterol.

Nutritional Risk Screening index is a standard tool to assess nutritional risk, but epidemiological data are scarce on controlling nutritional status (CONUT) as a prognostic marker in acute haemorrhagic stroke (AHS). We aimed to explore whether the CONUT may predict a 3-month functional outcome in AHS. In total, 349 Chinese patients with incident AHS were consecutively recruited, and their malnutrition risks were determined using a high CONUT score of ≥ 2. The cohort patients were divided into high-CONUT (≥ 2) and low-CONUT (< 2) groups, and primary outcomes were a poor functional prognosis defined as the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of ≥ 3 at post-discharge for 3 months. Odds ratios (OR) with 95 % confidence intervals (CI) for the poor functional prognosis at post-discharge were estimated by using a logistic analysis with additional adjustments for unbalanced variables between the high-CONUT and low-CONUT groups. A total of 328 patients (60·38 ± 12·83 years; 66·77 % male) completed the mRS assessment at post-discharge for 3 months, with 172 patients at malnutrition risk at admission and 104 patients with a poor prognosis. The levels of total cholesterol and total lymphocyte counts were significantly lower in high-CONUT patients than low-CONUT patients (P = 0·012 and < 0·001, respectively). At 3-month post discharge, there was a greater risk for the poor outcome in the high-CONUT compared with the low-CONUT patients at admission (OR: 2·32, 95 % CI: 1·28, 4·17). High-CONUT scores independently predict a 3-month poor prognosis in AHS, which helps to identify those who need additional nutritional managements.

We report on the design and first results from experiments looking at the formation of radiative shocks on the Shenguang-II (SG-II) laser at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics in China. Laser-heating of a two-layer CH/CH–Br foil drives a $\sim 40$ km/s shock inside a gas cell filled with argon at an initial pressure of 1 bar. The use of gas-cell targets with large (several millimetres) lateral and axial extent allows the shock to propagate freely without any wall interactions, and permits a large field of view to image single and colliding counter-propagating shocks with time-resolved, point-projection X-ray backlighting ($\sim 20$ μm source size, 4.3 keV photon energy). Single shocks were imaged up to 100 ns after the onset of the laser drive, allowing to probe the growth of spatial nonuniformities in the shock apex. These results are compared with experiments looking at counter-propagating shocks, showing a symmetric drive that leads to a collision and stagnation from $\sim 40$ ns onward. We present a preliminary comparison with numerical simulations with the radiation hydrodynamics code ARWEN, which provides expected plasma parameters for the design of future experiments in this facility.

A 1178 J near diffraction limited 527 nm laser is realized in a complete closed-loop adaptive optics (AO) controlled off-axis multi-pass amplification laser system. Generated from a fiber laser and amplified by the pre-amplifier and the main amplifier, a 1053 nm laser beam with the energy of 1900 J is obtained and converted into a 527 nm laser beam by a KDP crystal with 62% conversion efficiency, 1178 J and beam quality of 7.93 times the diffraction limit (DL). By using a complete closed-loop AO configuration, the static and dynamic wavefront distortions of the laser system are measured and compensated. After correction, the diameter of the circle enclosing 80% energy is improved remarkably from 7.93DL to 1.29DL. The focal spot is highly concentrated and the 1178 J, 527 nm near diffraction limited laser is achieved.

Saraiki (ISO 639-3:skr) is an Indo-Aryan language widely used in Pakistan and India (Bashir, Conners & Hefright 2019). The variety described here is Central Saraiki, spoken in the districts of Multan, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalpur and the northern parts of Dera Ghazi Khan in Pakistan, which form the largest of the Saraiki-speaking areas.1 Geographically, Pakistan is divided into four provinces, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pukhton Khaw (KPK) and Balochistan. Punjabi is spoken in Punjab, and Sindhi is the dominant language in Sindh. Most Pashto speakers live in KPK and Balochistan, while the inhabitants of Balochistan speak Balochi, Brahui and Saraiki. Other than Urdu, Saraiki is the only language which is spoken in all four provinces of Pakistan, with a majority of speakers in southern Punjab.