We present the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) Pilot Phase I Hi kinematic models. This first data release consists of Hi observations of three fields in the direction of the Hydra and Norma clusters, and the NGC 4636 galaxy group. In this paper, we describe how we generate and publicly release flat-disk tilted-ring kinematic models for 109/592 unique Hi detections in these fields. The modelling method adopted here—which we call the WALLABY Kinematic Analysis Proto-Pipeline (WKAPP) and for which the corresponding scripts are also publicly available—consists of combining results from the homogeneous application of the FAT and 3DBarolo algorithms to the subset of 209 detections with sufficient resolution and $S/N$ in order to generate optimised model parameters and uncertainties. The 109 models presented here tend to be gas rich detections resolved by at least 3–4 synthesised beams across their major axes, but there is no obvious environmental bias in the modelling. The data release described here is the first step towards the derivation of similar products for thousands of spatially resolved WALLABY detections via a dedicated kinematic pipeline. Such a large publicly available and homogeneously analysed dataset will be a powerful legacy product that that will enable a wide range of scientific studies.

We present WALLABY pilot data release 1, the first public release of H i pilot survey data from the Wide-field ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind Survey (WALLABY) on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder. Phase 1 of the WALLABY pilot survey targeted three $60\,\mathrm{deg}^{2}$ regions on the sky in the direction of the Hydra and Norma galaxy clusters and the NGC 4636 galaxy group, covering the redshift range of $z \lesssim 0.08$ . The source catalogue, images and spectra of nearly 600 extragalactic H i detections and kinematic models for 109 spatially resolved galaxies are available. As the pilot survey targeted regions containing nearby group and cluster environments, the median redshift of the sample of $z \approx 0.014$ is relatively low compared to the full WALLABY survey. The median galaxy H i mass is $2.3 \times 10^{9}\,{\rm M}_{{\odot}}$ . The target noise level of $1.6\,\mathrm{mJy}$ per 30′′ beam and $18.5\,\mathrm{kHz}$ channel translates into a $5 \sigma$ H i mass sensitivity for point sources of about $5.2 \times 10^{8} \, (D_{\rm L} / \mathrm{100\,Mpc})^{2} \, {\rm M}_{{\odot}}$ across 50 spectral channels ( ${\approx} 200\,\mathrm{km \, s}^{-1}$ ) and a $5 \sigma$ H i column density sensitivity of about $8.6 \times 10^{19} \, (1 + z)^{4}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ across 5 channels ( ${\approx} 20\,\mathrm{km \, s}^{-1}$ ) for emission filling the 30′′ beam. As expected for a pilot survey, several technical issues and artefacts are still affecting the data quality. Most notably, there are systematic flux errors of up to several 10% caused by uncertainties about the exact size and shape of each of the primary beams as well as the presence of sidelobes due to the finite deconvolution threshold. In addition, artefacts such as residual continuum emission and bandpass ripples have affected some of the data. The pilot survey has been highly successful in uncovering such technical problems, most of which are expected to be addressed and rectified before the start of the full WALLABY survey.

The SPARC tokamak is a critical next step towards commercial fusion energy. SPARC is designed as a high-field ($B_0 = 12.2$ T), compact ($R_0 = 1.85$ m, $a = 0.57$ m), superconducting, D-T tokamak with the goal of producing fusion gain $Q>2$ from a magnetically confined fusion plasma for the first time. Currently under design, SPARC will continue the high-field path of the Alcator series of tokamaks, utilizing new magnets based on rare earth barium copper oxide high-temperature superconductors to achieve high performance in a compact device. The goal of $Q>2$ is achievable with conservative physics assumptions ($H_{98,y2} = 0.7$) and, with the nominal assumption of $H_{98,y2} = 1$, SPARC is projected to attain $Q \approx 11$ and $P_{\textrm {fusion}} \approx 140$ MW. SPARC will therefore constitute a unique platform for burning plasma physics research with high density ($\langle n_{e} \rangle \approx 3 \times 10^{20}\ \textrm {m}^{-3}$), high temperature ($\langle T_e \rangle \approx 7$ keV) and high power density ($P_{\textrm {fusion}}/V_{\textrm {plasma}} \approx 7\ \textrm {MW}\,\textrm {m}^{-3}$) relevant to fusion power plants. SPARC's place in the path to commercial fusion energy, its parameters and the current status of SPARC design work are presented. This work also describes the basis for global performance projections and summarizes some of the physics analysis that is presented in greater detail in the companion articles of this collection.

The fatty acid composition of chicken’s meat is largely influenced by dietary lipids, which are often used as supplements to increase dietary caloric density. The underlying key metabolites and pathways influenced by dietary oils remain poorly known in chickens. The objective of this study was to explore the underlying metabolic mechanisms of how diets supplemented with mixed or a single oil with distinct fatty acid composition influence the fatty acid profile in breast muscle of Qingyuan chickens. Birds were fed a corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with either soybean oil (control, CON) or equal amounts of mixed edible oils (MEO; soybean oil : lard : fish oil : coconut oil = 1 : 1 : 0.5 : 0.5) from 1 to 120 days of age. Growth performance and fatty acid composition of muscle lipids were analysed. LC-MS was applied to investigate the effects of CON v. MEO diets on lipid-related metabolites in the muscle of chickens at day 120. Compared with the CON diet, chickens fed the MEO diet had a lower feed conversion ratio (P < 0.05), higher proportions of lauric acid (C12:0), myristic acid (C14:0), palmitoleic acid (C16:1n-7), oleic acid (C18:1n-9), EPA (C20:5n-3) and DHA (C22:6n-3), and a lower linoleic acid (C18:2n-6) content in breast muscle (P < 0.05). Muscle metabolome profiling showed that the most differentially abundant metabolites are phospholipids, including phosphatidylcholines (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamines (PE), which enriched the glycerophospholipid metabolism (P < 0.05). These key differentially abundant metabolites – PC (14:0/20:4), PC (18:1/14:1), PC (18:0/14:1), PC (18:0/18:4), PC (20:0/18:4), PE (22:0/P-16:0), PE (24:0/20:5), PE (22:2/P-18:1), PE (24:0/18:4) – were closely associated with the contents of C12:0, C14:0, DHA and C18:2n-6 in muscle lipids (P < 0.05). The content of glutathione metabolite was higher with MEO than CON diet (P < 0.05). Based on these results, it can be concluded that the diet supplemented with MEO reduced the feed conversion ratio, enriched the content of n-3 fatty acids and modified the related metabolites (including PC, PE and glutathione) in breast muscle of chickens.

The study investigated whether different dietary energy and protein sources affect laying performance, antioxidant status, fresh yolk fatty acid profile and quality of salted yolks in laying ducks. In all, 360 19-week-old Longyan ducks were randomly assigned to four diets in a factorial arrangement (2×2). The four diets consisted of two energy sources, corn (CO) or sorghum (SO) and two protein sources, soybean meal (SM) and rapeseed meal with corn distillers dried grains with solubles (RMD), and each treatment contained six replicates of 15 birds each. The experimental diets were isocaloric (metabolizable energy, 10.84 MJ/kg) and isonitrogenous (CP, 17%). The results showed that egg production, average egg weight, egg mass and feed conversion ratio were not affected by diets (P>0.05). Plasma contents of reduced glutathione (GSH), GSH/oxidized glutathione and total antioxidant capacity were lower (P<0.05) in ducks fed the RMD diets compared with those fed SM diets with a substantial increase (P=0.006) in plasma content of malondialdehyde (MDA). Egg yolks from ducks fed SO diets had higher proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and lower saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids compared with CO diets (P<0.001). Similarly, ducks fed RMD diets had a higher content of PUFA and n-6/n-3 ratio in fresh yolks (P<0.001), and increased salted yolk MDA, carbonylated proteins content and incidence of hard salted yolks (P<0.05) compared with SM diets. Scanning electron microscopy showed that salted yolks contained rougher polyhedral granules and fewer fat droplets, and were surrounded with a layer of bunchy fibers in ducks fed SO+RMD than those fed CO+SM diet. In conclusion, the current study showed that feeding laying ducks with diets containing SO or RMD reduced antioxidant capacity and increased egg yolk concentrations of PUFA. It appeared that egg yolks from ducks fed these diets were more sensitive to lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation during salting, and reduced the quality of salted yolks.

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) has been shown to be involved in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced immune responses in many mammal cells. Here, we suggest that the mTOR pathway is involved in the intestinal inflammatory responses evoked by LPS treatment in chicken embryos. The intestinal tissue from Specific pathogen free chick embryos was cultured in the presence of LPS for 2 h. Secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) concentrations, messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of cytokines, and protein levels of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), mTOR and p70 ribosomal S6 kinase (p70S6K) were determined. The results showed that LPS treatment increased sIgA concentrations in a dose-dependent manner. The mRNA levels of interleukine (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-α and Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 were upregulated by LPS treatment (P<0.05). Lipopolysaccharide increased the phosphorylation of Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), p38 MAPK and NF-κB (P<0.05) while decreasing the phosphorylation level of mTOR (P<0.05). Supplementation of leucine at doses of 10, 20 and 40 mM dose-dependently decreased sIgA production. Leucine supplementation at 40 mM restored the phosphorylation level of mTOR and p70S6K while suppressing the phosphorylation levels of NF-κB (P<0.05) and partially down-regulating the phosphorylation of p38 MAPK and JNK. The transcription of IL-6 was significantly decreased by leucine supplementation. These results suggested that leucine could alleviate LPS-induced inflammatory responses by down-regulating NF-κB signaling pathway and evoking mTOR/p70S6K signaling pathway, which may involve in the regulation of the intestinal immune system in chicken embryos.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the leading causes of death and morbidity associated with liver disease. Risk factors identified for the transmission of HCV include contaminated blood products, intravenous drug use, body piercing, an infected mother at birth, sexual activity, and dental therapy, among others. However, the exact diversity of the HCV genotype and genetic variation among patients with low-risk factors is still unknown. In this study, we briefly described and analysed the genotype distribution and genetic variation of HCV infections with low-risk factors using molecular biology techniques. The results suggested that genotype 1b was predominant, followed by genotypes 2a and 1a. Genetic variations in the 5′ UTR sequences of HCV were identified, including point mutations, deletions, and insertions. The frequency of genetic variations in 1b was higher than in 2a. This study provides considerable value for the prevention and treatment of liver disease caused by HCV among patients with low-risk factors and for the development of HCV diagnostic reagents and vaccines.

The Yellow Sea region is of high global importance for waterbird populations, but recent systematic bird count data enabling identification of the most important sites are relatively sparse for some areas. Surveys of waterbirds at three sites on the coast of southern Jiangsu Province, China, in 2014 and 2015 produced peak counts of international importance for 24 species, including seven globally threatened and six Near Threatened species. The area is of particular global importance for the ‘Critically Endangered’ Spoon-billed Sandpiper Calidris pygmaea (peak count across all three study sites: 62 in spring [2015] and 225 in autumn [2014] and ‘Endangered’ Spotted Greenshank Tringa guttifer (peak count across all three study sites: 210 in spring [2014] and 1,110 in autumn [2015]). The southern Jiangsu coast is therefore currently the most important migratory stopover area in the world, in both spring and autumn, for both species. Several serious and acute threats to waterbirds were recorded at these study sites. Paramount is the threat of large-scale land claim which would completely destroy intertidal mudflats of critical importance to waterbirds. Degradation of intertidal mudflat habitats through the spread of invasive Spartina, and mortality of waterbirds by entrapment in nets or deliberate poisoning are also real and present serious threats here. Collisions with, and displacement by, wind turbines and other structures, and industrial chemical pollution may represent additional potential threats. We recommend the rapid establishment of effective protected areas for waterbirds in the study area, maintaining large areas of open intertidal mudflat, and the urgent removal of all serious threats currently faced by waterbirds here.

A new method, called Cloud of Points (COP) Reconstruction, is proposed in the present work to extend the meshfree method to simulate viscous flows. With the characters of viscous flows, the anisotropic COP structure is distributed in boundary layer. The proposed method can improve the anisotropic COP structure to isotropic COP structure and reduce the condition number of the least square coefficient matrix for conventional meshfree method. The values of the new reconstructed points are calculated by the Lagrange interpolation. The accuracy and the robustness of the presented meshfree solver are demonstrated on a number of standard test cases, including the functions with analytical gradients and the viscous flows past NACA0012 airfoil. The comparison of the simulation results with the experimental data and other numerical simulation data are also investigated.

A study was conducted to evaluate the main effects of dietary nitrate adaptation by cattle and alfalfa cell wall to starch ratio in in vitro substrates on nitrate disappearance and nitrite and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations, as well as hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4) accumulations. Rumen fluid from steers fed diets containing urea or nitrate was added into in vitro incubations containing sodium nitrate as the sole nitrogen source and 20 cell wall : 80 starch or 80 cell wall : 20 starch as the carbohydrate source. The results showed that during 24 h incubation, rumen fluid inoculums from steers adapted to dietary nitrate resulted in more rapid nitrate disappearance by 6 h of incubation (P < 0.01), no significant effect on nitrite concentration and diminished CH4 accumulation (P < 0.05). Cell wall to starch ratio did not affect nitrate disappearance, CH4 accumulation and total VFA concentration. The higher cell wall ratio had the lower total gas production and H2 concentration (P < 0.05). Ammonia-N (NH3-N) concentration increased because of adaptation of donors to nitrate feeding (P < 0.05). Nitrate adaptation did not alter total VFA concentration, but increased acetate, and decreased propionate and butyrate molar proportions (P < 0.01).

Dielectric polymers with high energy density with low loss at high electric fields are highly desired for many energy storage and regulation applications. A polar-fluoropolymer blend consisting of a high energy density polar-fluoropolymer of poly(vinylidene fluoride-chlorotrifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-CTFE)) with a low dielectric loss polymer of poly(ethylene-chlorotrifluoroethylene) (ECTFE) was developed and investigated. We show that the two polymers are partially miscible which leads to blends with high energy density and low loss. Moreover, by introducing crosslinking to further tailor the nano-structures of the blends a markedly reduction of losses in the blend films at high field can be achieved. The crosslinked blend films show a dielectric constant of 7 with a dielectric loss of 1% at low field. Furthermore, the blends maintain a high energy density and low loss (∼3%) at high electric fields (> 250 MV/m).

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011.

The present paper describes an unconventional approach to fabricate superhydrophilic-superhydrophobic template on the TiO2 nanotube structured film by a combination of electrochemical anodization and photocatalytic lithography. Based on template with extreme wetting contrast, various functional nanostructures micropattern with high resolution have been successfully fabricated. The resultant micropattern has been characterized with scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It is shown that functional nanostructures can be selectively grown at superhydrophilic areas which are confined by the hydrophobic regions, indicating that the combined process of electrochemically self-assembly and photocatalytic lithography is a very promising approach for constructing well-defined templates for various functional materials growth.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2005 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, July 31--August 4, 2005