Pebrine disease, caused by Nosema bombycis (Nb) infection in silkworms, is a severe and long-standing disease that threatens sericulture. As parasitic pathogens, a complex relationship exists between microsporidia and their hosts at the mitochondrial level. Previous studies have found that the translocator protein (TSPO) is involved in various biological functions, such as membrane potential regulation, mitochondrial autophagy, immune responses, calcium ion channel regulation, and cell apoptosis. In the present study, we found that TSPO expression in silkworms (BmTSPO) was upregulated following Nb infection, leading to an increase in cytoplasmic calcium, adenosine triphosphate, and reactive oxygen species levels. Knockdown and overexpression of BmTSPO resulted in the promotion and inhibition of Nb proliferation, respectively. We also demonstrated that the overexpression of BmTSPO promotes host cell apoptosis and significantly increases the expression of genes involved in the immune deficiency and Janus kinase-signal transducer and the activator of the transcription pathways. These findings suggest that BmTSPO activates the innate immune signalling pathway in silkworms to regulate Nb proliferation. Targeting TSPO represents a promising approach for the development of new treatments for microsporidian infections.

Wall temperature has a significant effect on shock wave/turbulent boundary layer interactions (STBLIs) and has become a non-negligible factor in the design process of hypersonic vehicles. In this paper, direct numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the wall temperature effects on STBLIs over a 34° compression ramp at Mach number 6. Three values of the wall-to-recovery-temperature ratio (0.50, 0.75 and 1.0) are considered in the simulations. The results show that the size of the separation bubble declines significantly as the wall temperature decreases. This is because the momentum profile of the boundary layer becomes fuller with wall cooling, which means the near-wall fluid has a greater momentum to suppress flow separation. An equation based on the free-interaction theory is proposed to predict the distributions of the wall pressure upstream of the corner at different wall temperatures. The prediction results are generally consistent with the simulation results (Reynolds number Reτ ranges from 160 to 675). In addition, the low-frequency unsteadiness is studied through the weighted power spectral density of the wall pressure and the correlation between the upstream and downstream. The results indicate that the low-frequency motion of the separation shock is mainly driven by the downstream mechanism and that wall cooling can significantly suppress the low-frequency unsteadiness, including the strength and streamwise range of the low-frequency motions.

This study proposes a novel super-resolution (or SR) framework for generating high-resolution turbulent boundary layer (TBL) flow from low-resolution inputs. The framework combines a super-resolution generative adversarial neural network (SRGAN) with down-sampling modules (DMs), integrating the residual of the continuity equation into the loss function. The DMs selectively filter out components with excessive energy dissipation in low-resolution fields prior to the super-resolution process. The framework iteratively applies the SRGAN and DM procedure to fully capture the energy cascade of multi-scale flow structures, collectively termed the SRGAN-based energy cascade reconstruction framework (EC-SRGAN). Despite being trained solely on turbulent channel flow data (via ‘zero-shot transfer’), EC-SRGAN exhibits remarkable generalization in predicting TBL small-scale velocity fields, accurately reproducing wavenumber spectra compared to direct numerical simulation (DNS) results. Furthermore, a super-resolution core is trained at a specific super-resolution ratio. By leveraging this pretrained super-resolution core, EC-SRGAN efficiently reconstructs TBL fields at multiple super-resolution ratios from various levels of low-resolution inputs, showcasing strong flexibility. By learning turbulent scale invariance, EC-SRGAN demonstrates robustness across different TBL datasets. These results underscore the potential of EC-SRGAN for generating and predicting wall turbulence with high flexibility, offering promising applications in addressing diverse TBL-related challenges.

Cowl-induced incident shock wave/boundary layer interactions (ISWBLIs) under the influence of shoulder expansion represent one of the dominant phenomena in supersonic inlets. To provide a more comprehensive understanding of how an expansion corner affects the ISWBLI, a detailed experimental and analytical study is performed in a Mach 2.73 flow in this work. Pressure measurement, schlieren photography and surface oil-flow visualisation are used to record flow features, including the pressure distribution, separation extent and surface-flow topological structures. Our results reveal three types of ISWBLIs influenced by the expansion corner. When the shock intensity is weak, the separation is small scale with the expansion waves emanating from the expansion corner. This is the first type of expansion-corner-affected ISWBLI (EC-ISWBLI). When the incident shock wave is strong, large-scale separation occurs, accompanied by the disappearance of expansion waves, forming the second type of EC-SWBLI. The expansion corner induces a ‘lock-in’ effect in which the separation onset is consistently locked near the expansion corner regardless of the incident shock intensity and impingement position. The third type of EC-ISWBLI occurs when the shock is sufficiently strong and the impingement point is close to the expansion corner. In this interaction, the ‘lock-in’ effect ceases to manifest. Moreover, a shock polar-incorporating inviscid model is employed to elucidate the shock patterns. Two criteria are established by combining free interaction theory with this model. The first criterion provides valuable insights into the evolution of separations with a minimal overall pressure rise and the second criterion determines the threshold for the occurrence of the ‘lock-in’ effect.

The social-sexual environment is well known for its influence on the survival of organisms by modulating their reproductive output. However, whether it affects survival indirectly through a variety of cues without physical contact and its influence relative to direct interaction remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated both the indirect and direct influences of the social-sexual environment on the survival and reproduction of the mite Tyrophagus curvipenis (Acari: Acaridae). The results demonstrated no apparent influence of conspecific cues on the survival of mites, but the survival and reproduction of mated female mites significantly changed, with the females mated with males having a significantly shortened lifespan and increased lifetime fecundity. For males, no significant difference was observed across treatments in their survival and lifespan. These findings indicate that direct interaction with the opposite sex has a much more profound influence on mites than indirect interaction and highlight the urgent need to expand research on how conspecific cues modulate the performance of organisms with more species to clarify their impacts across taxa.

Increases in population size are associated with the adoption of Neolithic agricultural practices in many areas of the world, but rapid population growth within the Dingsishan cultural group of southern China pre-dated the arrival of rice and millet farming in this area. In this article, the authors identify starch grains from taros (Colocasia) and yams (Dioscorea) in dental calculus and on food-processing tools from the Dingsishan sites of Huiyaotian and Liyupo (c. 9030–6741 BP). They conclude that the harvesting and processing of these dietary staples supported an Early Holocene population increase in southern East Asia, before the spread of rice and millet farming.

In this paper, direct numerical simulations in hypersonic turbulent boundary layers over a $24^{\circ }$ compression ramp at Mach 6.0 are performed. The wall skin friction and its spanwise non-homogeneity in the interaction region are analysed via the spectral analysis and drag decomposition method. On the compression ramp, the premultiplied spanwise energy spectrum of wall shear stress $\tau _{w}$ reveals two energetic spanwise length scales. One occurs in the region of $x/\delta _{ref}=0\unicode{x2013}3$ ($x=0$ lies in the compression corner; $\delta _{ref}$ is the boundary layer thickness upstream of the interaction region) and is consistent with that of the large-scale streamwise vortices, indicating that the fluctuation intensity of $\tau _{w}$ is associated with the Görtler-type structures. The other one is observed downstream of $x/\delta _{ref}=3.0$ and corresponds to the regenerated elongated streaky structures. The fluctuation intensity of $\tau _{w}$ peaks at $x/\delta _{ref}=3.0$, where both the above energetic length scales are observed. The drag decomposition method proposed by Li et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 875, 2019, pp. 101–123) is extended to include the effects of spanwise non-homogeneity so that it can be used in the interaction region where the mean flow field and the mean skin friction $C_f$ exhibit an obvious spanwise heterogeneity. The results reveal that, in the upstream turbulent boundary layer, the drag contribution arising from the spanwise heterogeneity can be neglected, while this value on the compression ramp is up to 20.7 % of $C_f$, resulting from the Görtler-type vortices. With the aid of the drag decomposition method, it is found that the main flow features that contribute positively to the amplification of $C_f$ and its rapid increase on the compression ramp includes: the density increase across the shock, the high mean shear stress and turbulence amplification around the detached shear layer and the Favre-averaged downward velocity towards the ramp wall. Compared with the spanwise-averaged value, $C_f$ and its components at the spanwise station where the downwash and upwash of the Görtler-type vortices occur reveal a spanwise variation exceeding 10 %.

The potential threshold for dietary energy intake (DEI) that might prevent protein-energy wasting (PEW) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) is uncertain. The subjects were non-dialysis CKD patients aged ≥ 14 years who were hospitalised from September 2019 to July 2022. PEW was measured by subjective global assessment. DEI and dietary protein intake (DPI) were obtained by 3-d diet recalls. Patients were divided into adequate DEI group and inadequate DEI group according to DEI ≥ 30 or < 30 kcal/kg/d. Logistic regression analysis and restricted cubic spline were used in this study. We enrolled 409 patients, with 53·8 % had hypertension and 18·6 % had diabetes. The DEI and DPI were 27·63 (sd 5·79) kcal/kg/d and 1·00 (0·90, 1·20) g/kg/d, respectively. 69·2 % of participants are in the inadequate DEI group. Malnutrition occurred in 18·6 % of patients. Comparing with patients in the adequate DEI group, those in the inadequate DEI group had significantly lower total lymphocyte count, serum cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol and a higher prevalence of PEW. For every 1 kcal/kg/d increase in DEI, the incidence of PEW was reduced by 12·0 % (OR: 0·880, 95 % CI: 0·830, 0·933, P < 0·001). There was a nonlinear curve relationship between DEI and PEW (overall P < 0·001), and DEI ≥ 27·6 kcal/kg/d may have a preventive effect on PEW in CKD. Low DPI was also significantly associated with malnutrition, but not when DEI was adequate. Decreased energy intake may be a more important factor of PEW in CKD than protein intake.

Let $B(\Omega )$ be a Banach space of holomorphic functions on a bounded connected domain $\Omega $ in ${{\mathbb C}^n}$. In this paper, we establish a criterion for $B(\Omega )$ to be reflexive via evaluation functions on $B(\Omega )$, that is, $B(\Omega )$ is reflexive if and only if the evaluation functions span the dual space $(B(\Omega ))^{*} $.

The absorption and distribution of radiocarbon-labeled urea at the ultratrace level were investigated with a 14C-AMS biotracer method. The radiopharmaceutical concentrations in the plasma, heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, stomach, brain, bladder, muscle, testis, and fat of rats after oral administration of 14C urea at ultratrace doses were determined by AMS, and the concentration-time curves in plasma and tissues and pharmacokinetic distribution data were obtained. This study provides an analytical method for the pharmacokinetic parameters and tissue distribution of exogenous urea in rats at ultratrace doses and explores the feasibility of evaluation and long-term tracking of ultratrace doses of drugs with AMS.

This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the interaction between two quasi-steady burning droplets with differing temperatures, sizes and distances, building upon the mass-flux-potential model and flame-sheet assumption. In contrast to existing research, this study introduces a fresh perspective on droplet interactions by considering the different temperatures of the droplets. Utilizing the bispherical coordinate approach, theoretical solutions for the Stefan flow, scalar fields, droplet evaporation/burning rates, interaction coefficients and flame positions have been derived successfully. A comparison with extensive numerical simulations indicates a good agreement between the analytical and numerical results under a variety of conditions. It is revealed that proximity between the droplets causes non-uniform evaporation rates on their surfaces, and in some cases, leads to condensation on the cooler droplet. Notably, when the temperatures of the two droplets differ, this results in an uneven temperature distribution across the flame surface, and increasing the temperature of one droplet substantially elevates the temperature of the nearby flame. This study also establishes a criterion for the transition between different combustion modes, specifically between group and separated combustion. The findings of this study are crucial in deepening our understanding of evaporation and combustion processes, as well as the dynamics of flame spreading, local ignition, and extinction in systems involving multiple droplets.