The characterization of energetic protons generated in the ShenGuang-II UP petawatt laser interactions with foil targets has been systematically studied. The proton energy spectra and angular distributions are measured with a radiochromic film stack. It shows that the proton energy spectra have a Boltzmann distribution with temperature of about 2.8 MeV and cutoff energy of about 20 MeV. The divergence angles of protons vary from 10° to 60°, dependent on the proton energy. The proton source size and location are investigated via the proton point-projection mesh imaging. The proton virtual sources are found to locate tens to hundreds of microns in front of the foil target, depending on the proton energies. A Monte Carlo simulation estimates the diameter of the virtual proton source to be about 12 μm for the protons with energy of 16.8 MeV, which is much smaller than the laser focus size of about 50 μm. The spatial resolution of the 16.8 MeV proton imaging is quantified with the point spread function to be about 15 μm, which is consistent with the proton virtual source size. These results will be important for the users conducting experiments with the protons as a backlighting source on the ShenGuang-II UP petawatt laser.

In two-dimensional (2D) electron systems, the viscous flow is dominant when electron-electron collisions occur more frequently than the impurity or phonon scattering. In this work, a quantum hydrodynamic model, considering viscosity, is proposed to investigate the interaction of a charged particle moving above the two-dimensional viscous electron gas. The stopping power, perturbed electron gas density, and the spatial distribution of the velocity vector field have been theoretically analyzed and numerically calculated. The calculation results show that viscosity affects the spatial distribution and amplitude of the velocity field. The stopping power, which is an essential quantity for describing the interactions of ions with the 2D electron gas, is calculated, indicating that the incident particle will suffer less energy loss due to the weakening of the dynamic electron polarization and induced electric field in 2D electron gas with the viscosity. The values of the stopping power may be more accurate after considering the effect of viscosity. Our results may open up new possibilities to control the interaction of ions with 2D electron gas in the surface of metal or semiconductor heterostructure by variation of the viscosity.

Purpose. Herbal medicine is one of crucial symbols of Chinese national medicine. Investigation on molecular responses of different herbal strategies against viral myocarditis is immeasurably conducive to targeting drug development in the current international absence of miracle treatment. Methods. Literature retrieval platforms were applied in the collection of existing empirical evidences for viral myocarditis-related single-herbal strategies. SwissTargetPrediction, Metascape, and Discovery Studio coordinating with multidatabases investigated underlying target genes, interactive proteins, and docking molecules in turn. Results. Six single-herbal medicines consisting of Huangqi (Hedysarum Multijugum Maxim), Yuganzi (Phyllanthi Fructus), Kushen (Sophorae Flavescentis Radix), Jianghuang (Curcumaelongae Rhizoma), Chaihu (Radix Bupleuri), and Jixueteng (Spatholobus Suberectus Dunn) meet the requirement. There were 11 overlapped and 73 unique natural components detected in these herbs. SLC6A2, SLC6A4, NOS2, PPARA, PPARG, ACHE, CYP2C19, CYP51A1, and CHRM2 were equally targeted by six herbs and identified as viral myocarditis-associated symbols. MCODE algorithm exposed the hub role of SRC and EGFR in strategies without Jianghuang. Subsequently, we learned intermolecular interactions of herbal components and their targeting heart-tissue-specific CHRM2, FABP3, TNNC1, TNNI3, TNNT2, and SCN5A and cardiac-myocytes-specific IL6, MMP1, and PLAT coupled with viral myocarditis. Ten interactive characteristics such as π-alkyl and van der Waals were modeled in which ARG111, LYS253, ILE114, and VAL11 on cardiac troponin (TNNC1-TNNI3-TNNT2) and ARG208, ASN106, and ALA258 on MMP1 fulfilled potential communicating anchor with ellagic acid, 5α, 9α-dihydroxymatrine, and leachianone g via hydrogen bond and hydrophobic interaction, respectively. Conclusions. The comprehensive outcomes uncover differences and linkages between six herbs against viral myocarditis through component and target analysis, fostering development of drugs.

Product graphics interchange formats (GIFs) employ this format to show the features of the product and make up for the lack of physical experience online. These GIFs have been widely applied in domains such as e-shopping and social media, aiming to interest and impress viewers. Contrary to this wide application, most designers in this domain lack expertise and produce GIFs of varied quality. Moreover, the knowledge of techniques to enhance viewers’ engagement with product GIFs is also lacking. To bridge the gap, we conducted a series of studies. First, we collected and summarized seven design factors referring to existing literature and semi-structured interviews. Then, the impacts of these design factors were revealed through an online study with 106 product GIFs among 307 participants. The results showed that visual-related factors such as color contrast and moving intensity mainly impact viewers’ interest, while content-related factors such as scenario and style matching impact viewers’ impressions. The simplicity of GIFs also impressed viewers with a quick viewing mode. Finally, we conducted a workshop and verified that these results support large-scale production of product GIFs. Our studies might support the codesign methods of product GIFs and enhance their quality in design practice.

This paper proposes a robot model with multiple spines and investigates its effects on the bounding gait of quadruped robot. Contrastive tests, carried out by adding an active driving joint (ADJ) and changing the number of passive driving joints, were divided between simulation and physical. The results reveal that the spinal structure (one ADJ and several passive driving joints) is closely related to the performance parameters. Increasing the number of passive driving joints can improve the velocity and energy efficiency. This structure may have significant guidance for designing a quadruped robot.

Both prosthetic and robotic research communities have tended to focus on hand/gripper development. However, the wrist unit could enable higher mobility of the end effector and thus more efficient and dexterous manipulation. The current state of the art in both prosthetic and robotic wrists is reviewed systematically, mainly concerning their kinematic structures and resultant capabilities. Further, by considering the biomechanical advantages of the human wrist, an evaluation including the mobility, stability, output capability, load capacity and flexibility of the current artificial wrists is conducted. With the pentagonal capability radar charts, the major limitations and challenges in the current development of artificial wrists are derived. This paper hence provides some useful insights for better robotic wrist design and development.

Due to the lack of research between the inner layers in the structure of colonic mucous and the metabolism of fatty acid in the constipation model, we aim to determine the changes in the mucous phenotype of the colonic glycocalyx and the microbial community structure following treatment with Rhubarb extract in our research. The constipation and treatment models are generated using adult male C57BL/6N mice. We perform light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to detect a Muc2-rich inner mucus layer attached to mice colon under different conditions. In addition, 16S rDNA sequencing is performed to examine the intestinal flora. According to TEM images, we demonstrate that Rhubarb can promote mucin secretion and find direct evidence of dendritic structure-linked mucus structures with its assembly into a lamellar network in a pore size distribution in the isolated colon section. Moreover, the diversity of intestinal flora has noticeable changes in constipated mice. The present study characterizes a dendritic structure and persistent cross-links have significant changes accompanied by the alteration of intestinal flora in feces in models of constipation and pretreatment with Rhubarb extract.

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.

This paper investigates the monolithic edge-cladding process for the elliptical disk of N31-type Nd-doped phosphate laser glass, which will be utilized under liquid cooling conditions for high-power laser systems. The thermal stress, interface bubbles and residual reflectivity, which are due to high-temperature casting and bonding during the monolithic edge-cladding process, are simulated and determined. The applied mould is optimized to a rectangular cavity mould, and the casting temperature is optimized to 1000°C. The resulting lower bubble density makes the mean residual reflectivity as low as 6.75 × 10−5, which is enough to suppress the amplified spontaneous emission generated in the Nd-glass disk, and the resulting maximum optical retardation is converged to 10.2–13.3 nm/cm, which is a favourable base for fine annealing to achieve the stress specification of less than or equal to 5 nm/cm. After fine annealing at the optimized 520°C, the maximum optical retardation is as low as 4.8 nm/cm, and the minimum transmitted wavefront peak-to-valley value is 0.222 wavelength (632.8 nm). An N31 elliptical disk with the size of 194 mm × 102 mm × 40 mm can be successfully cladded by the optimized monolithic edge-cladding process, whose edge-cladded disk with the size of 200 mm × 108 mm × 40 mm can achieve laser gain one-third higher than that of an N21-type disk of the same size.

Routine coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) screening found 1 asymptomatic COVID-19 patient. An emergency sampling team was organized consisting of 1200 health-care workers, and a total of 3.2228 million COVID-19 samples had been collected and detected. This study summarizes the on-site management experience in large-scale COVID-19 nucleic acid testing from various aspects: staff preparation, materials preparation, site layout, logistics support, and information system support. Suggestions are put forward for the deficiencies and parts needing improvement. Such deficiencies included some sampling sites were not properly chosen, different areas were unclearly marked off from each other, and some site moving lines were confounding; how to communicate with the street service workers who had little professional knowledge on the epidemic spread or the working principles of the workflow and site layout; and the way to resolve conflicts on site.

Cancer remains the leading cause of death worldwide, and metastasis is still the major cause of treatment failure for cancer patients. Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been shown to play a critical role in the metastasis cascade of epithelium-derived carcinoma. Tumour microenvironment (TME) refers to the local tissue environment in which tumour cells produce and live, including not only tumour cells themselves, but also fibroblasts, immune and inflammatory cells, glial cells and other cells around them, as well as intercellular stroma, micro vessels and infiltrated biomolecules from the nearby areas, which has been proved to widely participate in the occurrence and progress of cancer. Emerging and accumulating studies indicate that, on one hand, mesenchymal cells in TME can establish ‘crosstalk’ with tumour cells to regulate their EMT programme; on the other, EMT-tumour cells can create a favourable environment for their own growth via educating stromal cells. Recently, our group has conducted a series of studies on the interaction between tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs) and colorectal cancer (CRC) cells in TME, confirming that the interaction between TAMs and CRC cells mediated by cytokines or exosomes can jointly promote the metastasis of CRC by regulating the EMT process of tumour cells and the M2-type polarisation process of TAMs. Herein, we present an overview to describe the current knowledge about EMT in cancer, summarise the important role of TME in EMT, and provide an update on the mechanisms of TME-induced EMT in CRC, aiming to provide new ideas for understanding and resisting tumour metastasis.

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.

The provenance and tectonic setting of the Lower–Middle Triassic clastic sediments from the Napo basin, South China, have been examined here using detrital modes, whole-rock geochemistry and detrital zircon U–Pb ages. Field investigations indicate that these sediments consist of fan delta, slope and turbidity fan facies with dominantly southward palaeocurrent directions. Detrital modes and geochemical characteristics of the clastic rocks indicate that they were derived from mixed magmatic arc and Palaeozoic successions in a continental island arc setting, with no significant sediment recycling. The U–Pb age spectra of sandstone detrital zircons from different stratigraphic positions are similar, with one major group (300–230 Ma), two subordinate groups (400–320 Ma and 480–420 Ma, respectively) and two scattered groups (1200–800 Ma and 2000–1700 Ma, respectively). Thus, we consider that the north late Permian – Middle Triassic volcanic rocks and the uplifted Palaeozoic sedimentary/volcanic sequences constituted the predominant sources. The detritus derived from the late Permian Emeishan mafic rocks is subordinate and limited. The pre-Devonian zircons are likely sedimentary-recycled or magmatic-captured instead of directly derived from the early Palaeozoic orogen (e.g. Yunkai massif) and Neoproterozoic Jiangnan orogen because of the topographic barrier of a magmatic arc and carbonate platform. Considering the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of the volcanic arc and ophiolite, we suggest that the Triassic Napo basin was a fore-arc basin within a continental island arc setting, which developed in response to the northward subduction of the Babu–Cao Bang branch ocean beneath the South China Block.

The ship safety domain plays a significant role in collision risk assessment. However, few studies take the practical considerations of implementing this method in the vicinity of bridge-waters into account. Therefore, historical automatic identification system data is utilised to construct and analyse ship domains considering ship–ship and ship–bridge collisions. A method for determining the closest boundary is proposed, and the boundary of the ship domain is fitted by the least squares method. The ship domains near bridge-waters are constructed as ellipse models, the characteristics of which are discussed. Novel fuzzy quaternion ship domain models are established respectively for inland ships and bridge piers, which would assist in the construction of a risk quantification model and the calculation of a grid ship collision index. A case study is carried out on the multi-bridge waterway of the Yangtze River in Wuhan, China. The results show that the size of the ship domain is highly correlated with the ship's speed and length, and analysis of collision risk can reflect the real situation near bridge-waters, which is helpful to demonstrate the application of the ship domain in quantifying the collision risk and to characterise the collision risk distribution near bridge-waters.

Microtubule-severing protein (MTSP) is critical for the survival of both mitotic and postmitotic cells. However, the study of MTSP during meiosis of mammalian oocytes has not been reported. We found that spastin, a member of the MTSP family, was highly expressed in oocytes and aggregated in spindle microtubules. After knocking down spastin by specific siRNA, the spindle microtubule density of meiotic oocytes decreased significantly. When the oocytes were cultured in vitro, the oocytes lacking spastin showed an obvious maturation disorder. Considering the microtubule-severing activity of spastin, we speculate that spastin on spindles may increase the number of microtubule broken ends by severing the microtubules, therefore playing a nucleating role, promoting spindle assembly and ensuring normal meiosis. In addition, we found the colocalization and interaction of collapsin response mediator protein 5 (CRMP5) and spastin in oocytes. CRMP5 can provide structural support and promote microtubule aggregation, creating transportation routes, and can interact with spastin in the microtubule activity of nerve cells (30). Knocking down CRMP5 may lead to spindle abnormalities and developmental disorders in oocytes. Overexpression of spastin may reverse the abnormal phenotype caused by the deletion of CRMP5. In summary, our data support a model in which the interaction between spastin and CRMP5 promotes the assembly of spindle microtubules in oocytes by controlling microtubule dynamics, therefore ensuring normal meiosis.