The target backsheath field acceleration mechanism is one of the main mechanisms of laser-driven proton acceleration (LDPA) and strongly depends on the comprehensive performance of the ultrashort ultra-intense lasers used as the driving sources. The successful use of the SG-II Peta-watt (SG-II PW) laser facility for LDPA and its applications in radiographic diagnoses have been manifested by the good performance of the SG-II PW facility. Recently, the SG-II PW laser facility has undergone extensive maintenance and a comprehensive technical upgrade in terms of the seed source, laser contrast and terminal focus. LDPA experiments were performed using the maintained SG-II PW laser beam, and the highest cutoff energy of the proton beam was obviously increased. Accordingly, a double-film target structure was used, and the maximum cutoff energy of the proton beam was up to 70 MeV. These results demonstrate that the comprehensive performance of the SG-II PW laser facility was improved significantly.

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.

Enhancing the supply of arginine (Arg), a semi-essential amino acid, has positive effects on immune function in dairy cattle experiencing metabolic stress during early lactation. Our objective was to determine the effects of Arg supplementation on biomarkers of liver damage and inflammation in cows during early lactation. Six Chinese Holstein lactating cows with similar BW (508 ± 14 kg), body condition score (3.0), parity (4.0 ± 0), milk yield (30.6 ± 1.8 kg) and days in milk (20 ± days) were randomly assigned to three treatments in a replicated 3 × 3 Latin square design balanced for carryover effects. Each period was 21 days with 7 days for infusion and 14 days for washout. Treatments were (1) Control: saline; (2) Arg group: saline + 0.216 mol/day l-Arg; and (3) Alanine (Ala) group: saline + 0.868 mol/day l-Ala (iso-nitrogenous to the Arg group). Blood and milk samples from the experimental cows were collected on the last day of each infusion period and analyzed for indices of liver damage and inflammation, and the count and composition of somatic cells in milk. Compared with the Control, the infusion of Arg led to greater concentrations of total protein, immunoglobulin M and high density lipoprotein cholesterol coupled with lower concentrations of haptoglobin and tumor necrosis factor-α, and activity of aspartate aminotransferase in serum. Infusion of Ala had no effect on those biomarkers compared with the Control. Although milk somatic cell count was not affected, the concentration of granulocytes was lower in response to Arg infusion compared with the Control or Ala group. Overall, the biomarker analyses indicated that the supplementation of Arg via the jugular vein during early lactation alleviated inflammation and metabolic stress.

The COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project is a large international collaborative effort to analyze individual-level phenotype data from twins in multiple cohorts from different environments. The main objective is to study factors that modify genetic and environmental variation of height, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and size at birth, and additionally to address other research questions such as long-term consequences of birth size. The project started in 2013 and is open to all twin projects in the world having height and weight measures on twins with information on zygosity. Thus far, 54 twin projects from 24 countries have provided individual-level data. The CODATwins database includes 489,981 twin individuals (228,635 complete twin pairs). Since many twin cohorts have collected longitudinal data, there is a total of 1,049,785 height and weight observations. For many cohorts, we also have information on birth weight and length, own smoking behavior and own or parental education. We found that the heritability estimates of height and BMI systematically changed from infancy to old age. Remarkably, only minor differences in the heritability estimates were found across cultural–geographic regions, measurement time and birth cohort for height and BMI. In addition to genetic epidemiological studies, we looked at associations of height and BMI with education, birth weight and smoking status. Within-family analyses examined differences within same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins in birth size and later development. The CODATwins project demonstrates the feasibility and value of international collaboration to address gene-by-exposure interactions that require large sample sizes and address the effects of different exposures across time, geographical regions and socioeconomic status.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease that was caused by a novel bunyavirus, SFTSV. The study aimed to disclose the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of SFTSV infection in China so far. An integrated clinical database comprising 1920 SFTS patients was constructed by combining first-hand clinical information collected from SFTS sentinel hospitals (n = 1159) and extracted data (n = 761) from published literature. The considered variables comprised clinical manifestations, routine laboratory tests of acute infection, hospitalization duration and disease outcome. SFTSV-IgG data from 19 119 healthy subjects were extracted from the published papers. The key clinical variables, case-fatality rate (CFR) and seroprevalence were estimated by meta-analysis. The most commonly seen clinical manifestations of SFTSV infection were fever, anorexia, myalgia, chill and lymphadenopathy. The major laboratory findings were elevated lactate dehydrogenase, aminotransferase, followed by thrombocytopenia, lymphocytopenia, elevated alanine transaminase and creatine kinase. A CFR of 12·2% was estimated, significantly higher than that obtained from national reporting data, but showing no geographical difference. In our paper, the mortality rate was about 1·9 parts per million. Older age and longer delay to hospitalization were significantly associated with fatal outcome. A pooled seroprevalence of 3·0% was obtained, which increased with age, while comparable for gender. This study represents a clinical characterization on the largest group of SFTS patients up to now. A higher than expected CFR was obtained. A wider spectrum of clinical index was suggested to be used to identify SFTSV infection, while the useful predictor for fatal outcome was found to be restricted.

The magnetic reconnection (MR) configuration was constructed by using two approaching laser-produced plasma bubbles. The characteristics of the MR current sheet were investigated. The driving energy of the laser pulse affects the type of the current sheet. The experiments present “Y-type” and “X-type” current sheets for larger and smaller driving energy, respectively. The energetic electrons were found to be well-collimated. The formation and ejection of plasmoid from the “Y-type” current sheet was expected to enhance the number of accelerated electrons.

A new micro-X-ray flourescence (XRF) instrument was developed in combination with an atomic force microscope (AFM). A small pinhole of 5 or 10 μm was made on the AFM cantilever. The center of the micro-X-ray beam generated by a polycapillary X-ray lens was passed through the pinhole. The present experiment demonstrated that the size of the original X-ray beam of 48 μm produced by the polycapillary lens was reduced to about 10 μm. This instrument enables both observation of the surface morphology by the AFM and elemental analysis by micro-XRF.

Recent Solar Dynamic Observatory observations reveal that some coronal mass ejections (CMEs) consist of multi-temperature structures: a hot channel and a cool leading edge (LE). The channel first appears as a twisted loop and lies along the polarity inversion line; it then gradually develops into the less twisted semicircular structure during the impulsive phase of CME acceleration. In the meantime, the hot channel compresses the surrounding magnetic field and plasma, which successively stack into the CME leading front. Here, we study two well observed CMEs, which occurred on 2010 November 3 and 2011 March 8, respectively. We find that, the hot channel rises earlier than the first appearance of the CME leading front and the onset of the associated flare, and that the speed of the hot channel is always larger than that of the leading front. Further differential emission measure analysis shows that the channel often has significant emission at high temperatures. We thus conclude that the observed hot channel is likely to be magnetic flux rope that acts as a driver of the CME acceleration in the early phase.

We present the temporal and spatial characterization of X-ray sources (at ~1 keV) driven by a 200 TW, 30 fs, 800 nm laser pulse on SILEX-I laser facility at Research Center of Laser Fusion. For laser copper foil interaction with laser intensity between 6 × 1018 W/cm2 and 3 × 1019 W/cm2, the X-ray images show cone-like jet structures. While the yield of X-rays is strongly dependent on the laser intensity, the plasma expansion length is weakly dependent on the laser intensity, and the open angle of the cone-like jet is not correlated to the laser intensity. The formation of the jet structure is attributed to the plasma transverse confine by the self-induced quasi-static magnetic field. An X-ray pedestal 4 ns preceding the main pulse was observed. The correlation between X-ray pedestal and collimated proton beam generation was found.

An enhanced thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, has been predicted for Bi2Te3 in the form of 2-dimensional quantum wells. A new approach to making multiple quantum well (MQW) structures for thermoelectric applications utilizing a chemical intercalation technique is proposed and investigated. It is proposed that by starting from Li intercalated Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3, the layers of these materials can be separated by chemical means. The layers of Bi2Te3 or Bi2 Se3 can then be restacked, by self-assembly, forming a non-periodic array of quantum wells. These chemically prepared MQWs are characterized by X-ray diffraction, SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and TEM (transmission electron microscopy) at various stages in the sample preparation to assess the degree to which the actual samples match the proposal. Experimental measurements of the Seebeck coefficient (S) and the electrical conductivity (σ) were performed over a range of temperatures for the initial bulk materials. It is found that some of the steps in the proposed fabrication have been achieved but still much improvement is needed before any practical thermoelectric 2D-system can be provided.