BOUT++ turbulence simulations were performed to investigate the impact of turbulence spreading on the edge localized mode (ELM) size and divertor heat flux width $({\lambda _q})$ broadening in small ELM regimes. This study is motivated by EAST experiments. BOUT++ linear simulations of a pedestal radial electric field (Er) scan show that the dominant toroidal number mode (n) shifts from high-n to low-n, with a narrow mode spectrum, and the maximum linear growth rate increases as the pedestal Er well deepens. The nonlinear simulations show that as the net E × B pedestal flow increases, the pressure fluctuation level and its inward penetration beyond the top of the pedestal both increase. This leads to a transition from small ELMs to large ELMs. Both inward and outward turbulence spreading are sensitive to the scrape-off-layer (SOL) plasma profiles. The inward turbulence spreading increases for the steep SOL profiles, leading to increasing pedestal energy loss in the small ELM regime. The SOL width $({\lambda _q})$ is significantly broadened progressing from the ELM-free to small ELM regime, due to the onset of strong radial turbulent transport. The extent of the SOL width $({\lambda _q})$ broadening depends strongly on outward turbulence spreading. The fluctuation energy intensity flux ${\varGamma _\varepsilon }$ at the separatrix can be enhanced by increasing either pedestal Er flow shear or local SOL pressure gradient. The ${\lambda _q}$ is broadened as the fluctuation energy intensity flux ${\varGamma _\varepsilon }$ at the last close flux surface (LCFS) increases. Local SOL E × B flow shear will restrain outward turbulence spreading and the associated heat flux width broadening. Operating in H-mode with small ELMs has the potential to solve two critical problems: reducing the ELM size and broadening the SOL width.

Stress and diabetes coexist in a vicious cycle. Different types of stress lead to diabetes, while diabetes itself is a major life stressor. This was the focus of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium’s 19th annual symposium, “Stress and Human Health: Diabetes,” in November 2022. There, researchers primarily from the Chicago area met to explore how different sources of stress – from the cells to the community – impact diabetes outcomes. Presenters discussed the consequences of stress arising from mutant proteins, obesity, sleep disturbances, environmental pollutants, COVID-19, and racial and socioeconomic disparities. This symposium showcased the latest diabetes research and highlighted promising new treatment approaches for mitigating stress in diabetes.

The interaction of relativistically intense lasers with opaque targets represents a highly non-linear, multi-dimensional parameter space. This limits the utility of sequential 1D scanning of experimental parameters for the optimization of secondary radiation, although to-date this has been the accepted methodology due to low data acquisition rates. High repetition-rate (HRR) lasers augmented by machine learning present a valuable opportunity for efficient source optimization. Here, an automated, HRR-compatible system produced high-fidelity parameter scans, revealing the influence of laser intensity on target pre-heating and proton generation. A closed-loop Bayesian optimization of maximum proton energy, through control of the laser wavefront and target position, produced proton beams with equivalent maximum energy to manually optimized laser pulses but using only 60% of the laser energy. This demonstration of automated optimization of laser-driven proton beams is a crucial step towards deeper physical insight and the construction of future radiation sources.

We present the development and characterization of a high-stability, multi-material, multi-thickness tape-drive target for laser-driven acceleration at repetition rates of up to 100 Hz. The tape surface position was measured to be stable on the sub-micrometre scale, compatible with the high-numerical aperture focusing geometries required to achieve relativistic intensity interactions with the pulse energy available in current multi-Hz and near-future higher repetition-rate lasers ($>$kHz). Long-term drift was characterized at 100 Hz demonstrating suitability for operation over extended periods. The target was continuously operated at up to 5 Hz in a recent experiment for 70,000 shots without intervention by the experimental team, with the exception of tape replacement, producing the largest data-set of relativistically intense laser–solid foil measurements to date. This tape drive provides robust targetry for the generation and study of high-repetition-rate ion beams using next-generation high-power laser systems, also enabling wider applications of laser-driven proton sources.

The effect of sheared E × B flow on the blob dynamics in the scrape-off layer (SOL) of HL-2A tokamak has been studied during the plasma current ramp-up in ohmically heated deuterium plasmas by the combination of poloidal and radial Langmuir probe arrays. The experimental results indicate that the SOL sheared E × B flow is substantially enhanced as the plasma current exceeds a certain value and the strong sheared E × B flow has the ability to slow the blob radial motion via stretching its poloidal correlation length. The locally accumulated blobs are suggested to be responsible for the increase of plasma density just outside the Last Closed Flux Surface (LCFS) observed in this experiment. The results presented here reveal the significant role played by the strong sheared E × B flow on the blob dynamics, which provides a potential method to control the SOL width by modifying the sheared E × B flow in future tokamak plasmas.

The great demographic pressure brings tremendous volume of beef demand. The key to solve this problem is the growth and development of Chinese cattle. In order to find molecular markers conducive to the growth and development of Chinese cattle, sequencing was used to determine the position of copy number variations (CNVs), bioinformatics analysis was used to predict the function of ZNF146 gene, real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used for CNV genotyping and one-way analysis of variance was used for association analysis. The results showed that there exists CNV in Chr 18: 47225201-47229600 (5.0.1 version) of ZNF146 gene through the early sequencing results in the laboratory and predicted ZNF146 gene was expressed in liver, skeletal muscle and breast cells, and was amplified or overexpressed in pancreatic cancer, which promoted the development of tumour through bioinformatics. Therefore, it is predicted that ZNF146 gene affects the proliferation of muscle cells, and then affects the growth and development of cattle. Furthermore, CNV genotyping of ZNF146 gene was three types (deletion type, normal type and duplication type) by Real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (qPCR). The association analysis results showed that ZNF146-CNV was significantly correlated with rump length of Qinchuan cattle, hucklebone width of Jiaxian red cattle and heart girth of Yunling cattle. From the above results, ZNF146-CNV had a significant effect on growth traits, which provided an important candidate molecular marker for growth and development of Chinese cattle.

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.

The high-altitude landscape of western Tibet is one of the most extreme environments in which humans have managed to introduce crop cultivation. To date, only sparse palaeoeconomic data have been reported from this region. The authors present archaeobotanical evidence from five sites (dating from the late first millennium BC and the early first millennium AD) located in the cold-arid landscape of western Tibet. The data indicate that barley was widely grown in this region by c. 400 BC but probably fulfilled differing roles within local ecological constraints on cultivation. Additionally, larger sites are characterised by more diverse crop assemblages than smaller sites, suggesting a role for social diversity in the development of high-altitude agriculture.

Accurate geometrical calibration between the scan coordinates and the camera coordinates is critical in four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) for both quantitative imaging and ptychographic reconstructions. For atomic-resolved, in-focus 4D-STEM datasets, we propose a hybrid method incorporating two sub-routines, namely a J-matrix method and a Fourier method, which can calibrate the uniform affine transformation between the scan-camera coordinates using raw data, without a priori knowledge of the crystal structure of the specimen. The hybrid method is found robust against scan distortions and residual probe aberrations. It is also effective even when defects are present in the specimen, or the specimen becomes relatively thick. We will demonstrate that a successful geometrical calibration with the hybrid method will lead to a more reliable recovery of both the specimen and the electron probe in a ptychographic reconstruction. We will also show that, although the elimination of local scan position errors still requires an iterative approach, the rate of convergence can be improved, and the residual errors can be further reduced if the hybrid method can be firstly applied for initial calibration. The code is made available as a simple-to-use tool to correct affine transformations of the scan-camera coordinates in 4D-STEM experiments.

There is a paucity of evidence about the prevalence and risk factors for symptomatic infection among children. This study aimed to describe the prevalence of symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its risk factors in children and adolescents aged 0–18 years in Qatar. We conducted a cross-sectional study of all children aged 0–18 years diagnosed with COVID-19 using polymerase chain reaction in Qatar during the period 1st March to 31st July 2020. A generalised linear model with a binomial family and identity link was used to assess the association between selected factors and the prevalence of symptomatic infection. A total of 11 445 children with a median age of 8 years (interquartile range (IQR) 3–13 years) were included in this study. The prevalence of symptomatic COVID-19 was 36.6% (95% confidence interval (CI) 35.7–37.5), and it was similar between children aged <5 years (37.8%), 5–9 years (34.3%) and 10 + years (37.3%). The most frequently reported symptoms among the symptomatic group were fever (73.5%), cough (34.8%), headache (23.2%) and sore throat (23.2%). Fever (82.8%) was more common in symptomatic children aged <5 years, while cough (38.7%) was more prevalent in those aged 10 years or older, compared to other age groups. Variables associated with an increased risk of symptomatic infection were; contact with confirmed cases (RD 0.21; 95% CI 0.20–0.23; P = 0.001), having visited a health care facility (RD 0.54; 95% CI 0.45–0.62; P = 0.001), and children aged under 5 years (RD 0.05; 95% CI 0.02–0.07; P = 0.001) or aged 10 years or older (RD 0.04; 95% CI 0.02–0.06; P = 0.001). A third of the children with COVID-19 were symptomatic with a higher proportion of fever in very young children and a higher proportion of cough in those between 10 and 18 years of age.

In recent years, men who have sex with men (MSM) constitute a major group of HIV transmission in China. High primary drug-resistance (PDR) rate in MSM also represents a serious challenge for the Chinese antiretroviral therapy (ART) program. To assess the efficiency of ART in controlling HIV/AIDS infection among MSM, we developed a compartmental model for the annually reported HIV/AIDS MSM from 2007 to 2019 in the Zhejiang Province of China. R0 was 2.3946 (95% CI (2.2961–2.4881)). We predict that 90% of diagnosed HIV/AIDS individuals will have received treatment till 2020, while the proportion of the diagnosed remains as low as 40%. Even when the proportion of the diagnosed reaches 90%, R0 is still larger than the level of AIDS epidemic elimination. ART can effectively control the spread of HIV, even in the presence of drug resistance. The 90-90-90 strategy alone may not eliminate the HIV epidemic in Chinese MSM. Behavioural and biologic interventions are the most effective interventions to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic among MSM.