This paper presents an optimization method for pattern synthesis of distorted phased array antenna with unsteady surface deformation considering the dynamic range ratio (DRR). In the synthesis approach, different array deformations under unsteady mechanical loads are considered, and the distorted distribution of array elements is calculated after solving the mechanical deformation model. Then, optimize the excitation coefficients of each array element including amplitude and phase with DRR control so as to recover a high-quality pattern from a deteriorated pattern caused by the unsteady deformations. The optimization objective is to minimize the peak sidelobe level, which is synthesized by using a gradient-based algorithm. The optimized excitations can be used as the initial excitation, and the corresponding phase excitations can be derived according to the different deformations.

Palmitoyl-protein thioesterase (PPT), involved in the fatty acid synthesis and the de-palmitoylation of protein, was induced under ecological cooling treatment in hydrated lettuce seeds. However, there was no significant difference in fatty acid levels between the control and the cooled samples. To further study the function of PPT, 2-bromopalmitic acid (2-Bp), an inhibitor of protein palmitoylation, was applied during the imbibition of hydrated lettuce seeds, which was followed by slow-cooling treatment (−3°C h−1). The application of 2-Bp (1 mM) significantly increased the survival rate of seeds from 6.70% (control imbibition) to 22.67% (2-Bp imbibition) after slow cooling to −20°C. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis indicated that 2-Bp led to earlier onset of ice crystals in the endosperm than the control group. Two-dimensional electrophoresis (2D) confirmed that 2-Bp could promote the hydrolysis of seed globulins and the accumulation of globulin peptides with small molecular weights. High-efficiency hydrolysis of globulin induced by mercaptoethanol improved the freezing tolerance of hydrated lettuce seeds and led to the accumulation of small globulin peptides, which further proved the positive function of small globulin polypeptides in enhancing the freezing tolerance of hydrated lettuce seeds. DSC of small globulin peptides showed that the smaller the molecular weight, the earlier the appearance of ice crystals and the higher the enthalpy of heat release. For the smallest peptides, the 2-Bp-4 in 2-Bp group exhibited higher enthalpy in exothermic peak than the control group (c-4). In conclusion, the hydrolysis of seed globulins and accumulation of small-molecule globulin peptides could be the major reason for improving the freezing tolerance of hydrated seeds after de-palmitoylation treatment.

Cyperus rotundus L. is a globally distributed noxious weed that poses a significant challenge for control due to its fast and efficient propagation through the tuber, which is the primary reproductive organ. Gibberellic acid (GA3) has proved to be crucial for tuberization in tuberous plants. Therefore, understanding the relationship between GA3 and tuber development and propagation of C.roundus will provide valuable information for controlling this weed. This study shows that the content of GA3 decreases with tuber development, which corresponds to lower expression of bioactive GA3 synthesis genes (CrGA20ox, two CrGA3oxs) and two up-regulated GA3 catabolism genes (CrGA2oxs), indicating that GA3 is involved in tuber development. Simultaneously, the expressions of CrDELLAs and CrGID1 decline with tuber growth and GA3 decreasing, and Yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) assays confirm that the GA3 signaling is DELLA-dependent. Furthermore, exogenous application of GA3 markedly reduces the number and the width of tuber, and represses the growth of tuber chain, further confirming the negative impact that GA3 has on tuber development and propagation. Taken together, these results demonstrate that GA3 is involved in tuber development and regulated by the DELLA-dependent pathway in C. rotundus, and plays a negative role in tuber development and propagation.

Aging plays a crucial role in the mechanisms of the impacts of genetic and environmental factors on blood pressure and serum lipids. However, to our knowledge, how the influence of genetic and environmental factors on the correlation between blood pressure and serum lipids changes with age remains to be determined. In this study, data from the Chinese National Twin Registry (CNTR) were used. Resting blood pressure, including systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), and fasting serum lipids, including total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglycerides (TGs) were measured in 2378 participants (1189 twin pairs). Univariate and bivariate structural equation models examined the genetic and environmental influences on blood pressure and serum lipids among three age groups. All phenotypes showed moderate to high heritability (0.37–0.59) and moderate unique environmental variance (0.30–0.44). The heritability of all phenotypes showed a decreasing trend with age. Among all phenotypes, SBP and DBP showed a significant monotonic decreasing trend. For phenotype-phenotype pairs, the phenotypic correlation (Rph) of each pair ranged from −0.04 to 0.23, and the additive genetic correlation (Ra) ranged from 0.00 to 0.36. For TC&SBP, TC&DBP, TG&SBP and TGs&DBP, both the Rph and Ra declined with age, and the Ra difference between the young group and the older adult group is statistically significant (p < .05). The unique environmental correlation (Re) of each pair did not follow any pattern with age and remained relatively stable with age. In summary, we observed that the heritability of blood pressure was affected by age. Moreover, blood pressure and serum lipids shared common genetic backgrounds, and age had an impact on the phenotypic correlation and genetic correlations.

To be successfully used in daily life situations, exoskeletons should be effective across multimodal scenarios, including walking on various terrains, and transitions between locomotion modes such as walking-to-stop. Correct continuous gait phase estimation is essential for high-level walking assistance control. Despite the impressive advances in gait phase estimation for a variety of locomotion modes, transition gait phase estimation is rarely researched, leading to the jittering of exoskeletons during walking-to-stop transitions. We propose an optimized phase oscillator (PO-opt) that estimates the gait phase correctly during transition gaits in multimodal locomotion, which is beneficial to eliminating the jittering. In the phase plane, a lateral axis extreme difference (LAED) is adopted to classify transition gaits. The threshold of LAED for transition gaits in multimodal locomotion was preliminarily determined by simulation, which was then applied and validated in experiments. Simulation results indicated that a threshold of 15.0 was suitable for transition gaits classification during treadmill walking, free walking, and ramp ascent/descent, while results of the experiment showed that a threshold between 6.5 and 10.5 was applicable for treadmill walking, free walking, and stair ascent/descent. In particular, the jittering elimination rates for 3, 4, and 5 km/h treadmill walking were improved from 29%, 21%, and 4% (PO model) to 100%, respectively, when the threshold of LAED was set at 15.0 in PO-opt model. The results indicated a significant increase in the rate of jittering elimination when the PO-opt model was applied. The model holds great promise in real-world applications for prostheses and other types of exoskeletons.

For the large redundant manipulator, due to its long working distance and large mass, the number of links (i.e., manipulator’s arms) that can be driven to move simultaneously is limited. Otherwise, the control accuracy and motion stability of the manipulator will deteriorate. Focusing on that, a weighted Newton iteration (WNI) algorithm for trajectory planning of the manipulator is firstly proposed, where the motion of the manipulator joints is controlled by a weight matrix, which is constant and related to each link’s energy consumption. To dynamically adjust the weight matrix according to kinematic constraints and acquire better energy efficiency, an adaptive WNI (AWNI) algorithm is further proposed. In AWNI, the weight matrix is adjusted in real-time during the planning process, with considerations of the kinematic constraints and the energy consumption of the manipulator. The switch of the links between the working state and the non-working state is made through the weight matrix to achieve flexible control of the manipulator motion. Two evaluation functions are established to validate the effectiveness of AWNI in energy saving and motion stability control. Taking a 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) manipulator as an example, simulation experiments on trajectory planning are carried out and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed AWNI algorithm.

To comprehensively study the physical properties of inductively coupled plasma (ICP), a finite element method (FEM) simulation model of ICP is developed using the well-established COMSOL software. To benchmark the validation of the FEM model, two key physical parameters, the electron density and the electron temperature of the ICP plasma, are precisely measured by the state-of-the-art laser Thomson scattering diagnostic approach. For low-pressure plasma such as ICP, the local pressure in the generator tube is difficult to measure directly. The local gas pressure in the ICP tube has been calibrated by comparing the experimental and simulation results of the maximum electron density. And on this basis, the electron density and electron temperature of ICP under the same gas pressure and absorbed power have been compared by experiments and simulations. The good agreement between the experimental and simulation data of these two key physical parameters fully verifies the validity of the ICP FEM simulation model. The experimental verification of the ICP FEM simulation model lays a foundation for further study of the distribution of various physical quantities and their variation with pressure and absorption power, which is beneficial for improving the level of ICP-related processes.

The interpretation and understanding of the relationship between Middle to Late Holocene climate change in monsoon margins of northwest China with the westerlies and Asian monsoon (AM) remain controversial. Here we present a new multi-proxy sedimentary dataset from the Heihe River basin in the middle part of the Hexi Corridor on the northern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), which is a sensitive zone for the interaction between the westerlies and AM. Fluctuations in grain size, δ13Corg, δ18O, magnetic susceptibility, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and C/N ratio document regional lake and climate evolution since 5334 cal yr BP. Results show that climate conditions on the millennial timescale are humid in the late Middle Holocene (MH) and dry to wet in the Late Holocene (LH). Combined with the multi-model ensemble simulation from PMIP3-CMIP5, high lake levels and wetter climate in the late MH are closely linked to the strengthening Asian summer monsoon. Simultaneously, the slight wetting trend since the late LH may be the superimposing effect of enhanced westerlies and the weakening Asian winter monsoon. These findings can provide insights into the interpretation of the interaction between the westerlies and AM during the Holocene in East Asia.

Folate, also known as vitamin B9, is a water-soluble vitamin. Previous studies on dietary folate intake in severe headache patients were equivocal. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional study to elucidate the relationship between folate intake and severe headache. This cross-sectional study used data from participants over 20 years old who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2004. The diagnosis of severe headache was made through participants’ self-report in the NHANES questionnaire section. We performed multivariate logistic regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression to explore the relationship between folate intake and severe headache. A total of 9859 participants took part in the study, 1965 of whom were severe headache patients and the rest were non-severe headache. We found that dietary folate intake was significantly and inversely associated with severe headache. Compared with participants with lower folate intake Q1 (≤ 229·97 ug/d), the adjusted OR values for dietary folate intake and severe headache in Q2 (229·98–337 ug/d), Q3 (337·01–485 ug/d) and Q4 (≥ 485·01 ug/d) were 0·81 (95 % CI: 0·67, 0·98, P = 0·03), 0·93 (95 % CI: 0·77, 1·12, P = 0·41) and 0·63 (95 % CI: 0·49, 0·80, P < 0·001), respectively. For women aged 20–50 years, there was a non-linear association between folate intake and severe headache in the RCS. Women aged 20–50 years should have higher awareness of dietary folate and increase their dietary intake of folate, which may aid in preventing severe headache.

Maritime cybersecurity has attracted increasing attention in industrial and academic scope, which may be relevant to the increasing cyber-incidents in the maritime shipping industry. This paper presents a critical review of publications related to cybersecurity in the maritime transportation industry, to explore the current research status and gaps, as wells as to guide new probe avenues by employing bibliometric approaches. With the advantage of bibliometric methods, the research focus and evolution are conformed and visualised. Representative papers are reviewed together to demonstrate maritime cyber-threats recognition and categories, as well as potential consequence assessment and risk mitigation actions recommendation. This paper also created a detailed database that is comprised of attack form, occurring time, targets, purpose, as well as potential results and cost, which has been included in the Appendix and is fully portable and extendible.

The dynamics of compound drops impacting on a flat substrate is numerically investigated using a ternary-fluid diffuse-interface method, with the aim of assessing the effect of a density difference between the inner and outer droplets (denoted by $\lambda$) on the evolution of the interfaces. With the help of numerical simulations, we find that, at the intermediate stage of drop impact, the inner droplet exhibits a self-similar deformation at $\lambda =1$ and relatively high Weber number, and experiences more or less a uniform acceleration for various $\lambda$. In particular, the acceleration magnitude at $\lambda \ne 1$ can be correlated with the acceleration at $\lambda =1$ and the Atwood number. When the inner droplet is denser than the outer one, a lamella occurs at the spreading front of the inner droplet. We present a scaling analysis of the thickness of the lamella, and the resultant theoretical prediction is in good agreement with numerical results. At the maximal spreading of the compound drop, a bulging structure is formed around the symmetry axis due to the presence of the inner droplet, thereby effectively reducing the liquid supply to the spreading front and leading to a decrease of maximal spreading ratio $\beta _{max}$ as compared with a pure drop. We proposed a corrected Weber number $We^*_\lambda$ by taking account of the combined effects of $\lambda$, volume fraction of the inner droplet, Weber number and morphology of the compound drop. Integrating $We^*_\lambda$ with the universal model of $\beta _{max}$ for impacting pure drops, we successfully build up a new model for predicting the maximal spreading ratio of impacting compound drops with various $\lambda$.

High-power femtosecond mid-infrared (MIR) lasers are of vast importance to both fundamental research and applications. We report a high-power femtosecond master oscillator power amplifier laser system consisting of a single-mode Er:ZBLAN fiber mode-locked oscillator and pre-amplifier followed by a large-mode-area Er:ZBLAN fiber main amplifier. The main amplifier is actively cooled and bidirectionally pumped at 976 nm, generating a slope efficiency of 26.9%. Pulses of 8.12 W, 148 fs at 2.8 μm with a repetition rate of 69.65 MHz are achieved. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power ever achieved from a femtosecond MIR laser source. Such a compact ultrafast laser system is promising for a wide range of applications, such as medical surgery and material processing.

In this paper, a realization method for high-efficiency broadband power amplifier (PA) based on split-ring resonator (SRR) second harmonic output matching network (SHOMN) is presented. The SRR is composed of double rectangular rings, and it can flexibly match the second harmonic components to the high-efficiency impedance region in the Smith chart in a wide frequency band. Besides, the impedance transformation characteristic of SRR is derived, and the optimal output impedance is converted from the transistor drain to the output of SHOMN for accurate fundamental matching. For validation, a PA operating in 1.2–3.0 GHz is designed and fabricated for a 10-W GaN transistor. The measurement results show that the maximum efficiency can reach 78.3%; meanwhile, the average saturated output power is 41.0 dBm.

Shock-tube experiments are performed on the convergent Richtmyer–Meshkov (RM) instability of a multimode interface. The temporal growth of each Fourier mode perturbation is measured. The hydrodynamic instabilities, including the RM instability and the additional Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) effect, imposed by the convergent shock wave on the dual-mode interface, are investigated. The mode-coupling effect on the convergent RM instability coupled with the RT effect is quantified. It is evident that the amplitude growths of all first-order modes and second-order harmonics and their couplings depend on the variance of the interface radius, and are influenced by the mode-coupling from the very beginning. It is confirmed that the mode-coupling mechanism is closely related to the initial spectrum, including azimuthal wavenumbers, relative phases and initial amplitudes of the constituent modes. Different from the conclusion in previous studies on the convergent single-mode RM instability that the additional RT effect always suppresses the perturbation growth, the mode-coupling might result in the additional RT effect promoting the instability of the constituent Fourier mode. By considering the geometry convergence, the mode-coupling effect and other physical mechanisms, second-order nonlinear solutions are established to predict the RM instability and the additional RT effect in the cylindrical geometry, reasonably quantifying the amplitude growths of each mode, harmonic and coupling. The nonlinear solutions are further validated by simulations considering various initial spectra. Last, the temporal evolutions of the mixed mass and normalized mixed mass of a shocked multimode interface are calculated numerically to quantify the mixing of two fluids in the cylindrical geometry.

Word order is one of the most important grammatical devices and the basis for language understanding. However, as one of the most popular NLP architectures, Transformer does not explicitly encode word order. A solution to this problem is to incorporate position information by means of position encoding/embedding (PE). Although a variety of methods of incorporating position information have been proposed, the NLP community is still in want of detailed statistical researches on position information in real-life language. In order to understand the influence of position information on the correlation between words in more detail, we investigated the factors that affect the frequency of words and word sequences in large corpora. Our results show that absolute position, relative position, being at one of the two ends of a sentence and sentence length all significantly affect the frequency of words and word sequences. Besides, we observed that the frequency distribution of word sequences over relative position carries valuable grammatical information. Our study suggests that in order to accurately capture word–word correlations, it is not enough to focus merely on absolute and relative position. Transformers should have access to more types of position-related information which may require improvements to the current architecture.

Menaquinone-7 (MK-7), a multipotent vitamin K2, possesses a wide range of biological activities, a precise curative effect and excellent safety. A simple and rapid LC-APCI-MS/MS method for the determination of MK-7 in human plasma with single liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) extraction and 4·5-min analysis time has been developed and validated. Four per cent bovine serum albumin (BSA) was used as surrogate matrix for standard curves and endogenous baseline subtraction. This method was reproducible and reliable and was used to analyse of MK-7 in human plasma. The endogenous circadian rhythm and bioavailability of MK-7 were investigated in two randomised single-dose, open, one-way clinical trials (Study I and Study II). A total of five healthy male subjects were enrolled in Study I and 12 healthy male subjects in Study II. Single-dose (1 mg) of MK-7 was given to each subject under fasting condition, and all eligible subjects were given a restricting VK2 diet for 4 d prior to drug administration and during the trial. The experiment results of Study I demonstrated that endogenous MK-7 has no circadian rhythm in individuals. Both studies showed MK-7 are absorbed with peak plasma concentrations at about 6 h after intake and has a very long half-life time.

The oblique shock impinging on the supersonic turbulent boundary layer leads to a mixing layer and the emergence of large-scale coherent structures within the interaction zone which leave significant velocity defect and turbulence amplification downstream. In the present study, we investigate the turbulence recovery in the post-shock region by exploiting direct numerical simulation data of the oblique-shock/turbulent boundary layer interaction flow at the incoming Mach number of $2.28$ and the shock angle of $33.2^\circ$, with special attention paid to the contribution of the mixing layer and large-scale structures to flow dynamics. For that purpose, we propose to split the mean velocity, Reynolds stresses and spanwise spectra into a canonical portion that is constructed according to the statistics of canonical turbulent boundary layers, and a mixing-layer-induced portion. We found that the hidden mixing layer grows with the boundary layer thickness and that the induced mean shear and Reynolds stresses decay at different rates. The mean velocity recovers to the canonical profiles at a distance of 13 boundary layer thicknesses downstream where the mixing-layer-induced mean shear ceases to have strong impacts. The recovery of Reynolds stresses requires 10 boundary layer thicknesses in the near-wall region but a much longer streamwise extent in the outer region due to the slow decay of large-scale motions. These large-scale motions superpose on the near-wall turbulence, intensifying the turbulent fluctuations, yet having a trivial impact on the skin friction, for the contribution of the mixing-layer-induced mean shear and Reynolds shear stress are balanced by the advection term. We further establish a simple physical model capable of approximately predicting the streamwise evolution of mixing-layer-induced mean shear and turbulent kinetic energy. This model suggests that the complete recovery of turbulence in the outer region requires a streamwise extent of approximately 50 boundary layer thicknesses.

Trematodes of the genus Ogmocotyle are intestinal flukes that can infect a variety of definitive hosts, resulting in significant economic losses worldwide. However, there are few studies on molecular data of these trematodes. In this study, the mitochondrial (mt) genome of Ogmocotyle ailuri isolated from red panda (Ailurus fulgens) was determined and compared with those from Pronocephalata to investigate the mt genome content, genetic distance, gene rearrangements and phylogeny. The complete mt genome of O. ailuri is a typical closed circular molecule of 14 642 base pairs, comprising 12 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and 2 non-coding regions. All genes are transcribed in the same direction. In addition, 23 intergenic spacers and 2 locations with gene overlaps were determined. Sequence identities and sliding window analysis indicated that cox1 is the most conserved gene among 12 PCGs in O. ailuri mt genome. The sequenced mt genomes of the 48 Plagiorchiida trematodes showed 5 types of gene arrangement based on all mt genome genes, with the gene arrangement of O. ailuri being type I. Phylogenetic analysis using concatenated amino acid sequences of 12 PCGs revealed that O. ailuri was closer to Ogmocotyle sikae than to Notocotylus intestinalis. These data enhance the Ogmocotyle mt genome database and provide molecular resources for further studies of Pronocephalata taxonomy, population genetics and systematics.