This study aimed to identify and quantify the various stem-like cell types in dairy cows’ colostrum and milk at the onset of lactation. Five second parity Holstein cows were monitored from calving until the seventh-day postpartum. Mammary secretions were collected immediately after calving, then every 3 h until 12 h during day (d) 0, and during morning milking on d 1, d 2, d 4 and d 7. Cells were prepared from mammary secretions and analysed by flow cytometry using relevant cellular markers. The highest total and viable cell concentrations were observed in colostrum collected at calving and up to 6 h, with these concentrations decreasing substantially in samples collected later at d 0. Then, the concentrations of both total and viable cell populations continued to slowly decrease until d 7, the kinetic curves reaching a baseline plateau. Flow cytometry showed that the CD49fposCD24pos population, which identifies mammary epithelial stem cells, represented about 0.9% of viable cells at calving and about 0.1% 12 h later, the mammary epithelial stem cell concentration therefore being at its highest level in the very first colostrum. In contrast, the percentage of mesenchymal stem-like cells, defined as the population of CD34negCD105posCD90posCD29pos cells, was roughly constant (≈0.3%) during the first two milkings and decreased mainly during the first day to a basal level close to 0. Concerning haematopoietic stem-like cells, defined as the CD45negCD34posCD117posCD90pos cell population, they were only observed in the colostrum collected at calving. All the types of stem cells studied here were therefore only present in substantial quantities in the colostrum of the very first hours after calving, a period during which the calf’s intestine is permeable, possibly allowing the transfer and integration of these cells in the tissues of the newborn calf.

This paper will explore the relationship between Theophilos and the generation of the 1930s on the basis of two parameters. On the one hand, an attempt will be made to reconfigure the image of Theophilos as a ‘spontaneous’ bearer of an immaculate and uninterrupted national tradition; on the other, the paper will address the reasons that determined this interest in the ‘illiterate’ (even ‘lunatic’) painter from Lesbos. It will be argued that what impressed the young intellectuals of the 1930s generation was not only Theophilos’ ‘primitive’ visual idiom but his idiomatic modernist idiom, precisely because it found an echo in their own contradictions as bearers of European modernity.

We show that smooth numbers are equidistributed in arithmetic progressions to moduli of size $x^{66/107-o(1)}$. This overcomes a longstanding barrier of $x^{3/5-o(1)}$ present in previous works of Bombieri, Friedlander and Iwaniec, Fouvry and Tenenbaum, Drappeau, and Maynard. We build on Drappeau’s variation of Linnik’s dispersion method and on exponential sum manipulations of Maynard, ultimately relying on optimized Deshouillers–Iwaniec-type estimates for sums of Kloosterman sums.

With the increasing manufacturing of electric vehicles, car battery recycling is crucial for environmental sustainability. The disassembly of car batteries includes critical health hazards for the operator, due to potential chemical reactions or physical injuries. These reasons make robots particularly interesting for automatic disassembly. This paper proposes a systematic approach to automation and human–robot cooperation in car battery disassembly tasks with a case study on screw removal. A novel parameter is proposed to evaluate whether a human operator or a robot is more appropriate for each specific task, considering both performance and associated risks. The proposed metrics are validated with an experimental example, in which the performance of a robot and a human on a screw-removal task is compared numerically using statistical methods. The advantages and disadvantages of both options are examined through the application and show how the new performance criterion effectively provides insights into the distribution of tasks between humans and robots.

Developing reduced-order models for the transport of solid particles in turbulence typically requires a statistical description of the particle–turbulence interactions. In this work, we utilize a statistical framework to derive continuum equations for the moments of the slip velocity of inertial, settling Lagrangian particles in a turbulent boundary layer. Using coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian direct numerical simulations, we then identify the dominant mechanisms controlling the slip velocity variance, and find that for a range of Stokes number ${S{\kern-0.5pt}t}^+$, Settling number ${S{\kern-0.5pt}v}^+$ and Reynolds number $\textit{Re}_\tau$ (based on frictional scales),the slip variance is primarily controlled by local differences between the ‘seen’ variance and the particle velocity variance, while terms appearing due to the inhomogeneity of the turbulence are subleading until ${S{\kern-0.5pt}v}^+$ becomes large. We also consider several comparative metrics to assess the relative magnitudes of the fluctuating slip velocity and the mean slip velocity, and we find that the vertical mean slip increases rapidly with ${S{\kern-0.5pt}v}^+$, rendering the variance relatively small – an effect found to be most substantial for ${S{\kern-0.5pt}v}^+\gt 1$. Finally, we compare the results with a model of the acceleration variance (Berk & Coletti 2021 J. Fluid Mech. 917, A47) based the concept of a response function described in Csanady (1963 J. Atmos. Sci. 20, 201–208), highlighting the role of the crossing trajectories mechanism. We find that while there is good agreement for low ${S{\kern-0.5pt}v}^+$, systematic errors remain, possibly due to implicit non-local effects arising from rapid particle settling and inhomogeneous turbulence. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this work for modelling the transport of coarse dust grains in the atmospheric surface layer.

The use of nanoparticles in the composition of drilling fluids can improve some of their properties (e.g. thermal, mechanical, electrical and rheological) due to their small size and high surface area, which can diminish the loss of fluid to the formation, thereby increasing thermal conductivity, reducing friction and improving well stability. In this work, we investigated the rheological and static filtration properties and the thermal performance of non-aqueous drilling fluids with organo-palygorskite-containing hydrophobic alumina (Al2O3) and amphiphilic strontium nickelate (SrNiO3) nanoparticles in varying concentrations. The results indicate that the fluids with nanoparticles had greater plastic viscosity and lower filtrate volumes. With regard to thermal performance, the fluids with nanoparticles absorbed more heat when subjected to higher temperatures. However, this excess energy was more easily released upon cooling. This study demonstrates the affinity of nanoparticles with the solvent phase of a drilling fluid and how this interaction affects their properties, with a particular emphasis on amphiphilic nanoparticles, which have been shown to have better performance in non-aqueous fluids with organo-palygorskite.

Ewe and Guin-Mina people in Togo often use festival and ritual events as forums for cultural exchange and as opportunities to reinterpret and repurpose images and objects imported from India. Instead of focusing on large-scale commercial interactions, this article illustrates Afro-Indian cultural exchanges enacted microcosmically upon the canvas of West African bodies. I examine small-scale encounters between Ewe and Guin-Mina Vodun practitioners and South Asian merchants, paying close attention to ritual performances for Mami Wata – a pantheon of Pan-African water spirits often depicted as mermaids and venerated for their dominion over maritime trade. Specifically, I consider how ritual specialists devoted to Mami Wata index histories of trade with Indian merchants through performances that embody Hindu chromolithograph images of deities like Dattatreya and Shiva as depictions of local water spirits. Focusing on movements, gestures and transoceanic flows of currency, goods and objects present in Togolese Mami Wata veneration, this article teases out the threads of critical consumerism, gender fluidity and choreographic practices that accompany such ceremonies, especially during moments of transformative copresence with spirits. Exploring ways Ewe and Guin-Mina performers in Togo use stylized gestures and adornments to transform understandings of commercial relations with foreigners into sources of agency and transformation, I examine ritual choreographies in public festivals and private rituals as oceanic intersections: material representations of desires for social, transcultural and transnational mobility.

An adverse in utero experience negatively impacts perinatal growth in livestock. Maternal heat stress (HS) during gestation reduces placental growth and function. This progressive placental insufficiency ultimately leads to fetal growth restriction (FGR). Studies in chronically catheterized fetal sheep have shown that FGR fetuses exhibit hypoxemia, hypoglycemia, and lower anabolic hormone concentrations. Under hypoxic stress and nutrient deficiency, fetuses prioritize basal metabolic requirements over tissue accretion to support survival. Skeletal muscle is particularly vulnerable to HS-induced placental insufficiency due to its high energy demands and large contribution to total body mass. In FGR fetuses, skeletal muscle growth is reduced, evidenced by smaller myofiber size and mass, reduced satellite cell proliferation, and slower rate of protein synthesis. Disruptions in skeletal muscle growth are associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, including reduced pyruvate flux into the mitochondrial matrix and lower complex I activity in the mitochondrial electron transport chain. This review summarizes current research on the mechanisms by which HS-induced placental insufficiency affects skeletal muscle growth in the fetus, with an emphasis on myogenesis, hypertrophy, protein synthesis, and energy metabolism. The evidence presented is primarily drawn from experiments using chronically catheterized fetal sheep exposed to maternal HS during mid-gestation. Additionally, we explore emerging nutritional strategies aimed at enhancing skeletal muscle growth in animals with FGR. These strategies hold promise not only for improving reproductive efficiency in livestock affected by prenatal stress but also for their translational relevance to human pregnancies complicated by placental insufficiency.

Powerful lasers may be used in the future to produce magnetic fields that would allow us to study turbulent magnetohydrodynamic inverse cascade behaviour. This has so far only been seen in numerical simulations. In the laboratory, however, the produced fields may be highly anisotropic. Here, we present corresponding simulations to show that, during the turbulent decay, such a magnetic field undergoes spontaneous isotropisation. As a consequence, we find the decay dynamics to be similar to that in isotropic turbulence. We also find that an initially pointwise non-helical magnetic field is unstable and develops magnetic helicity fluctuations that can be quantified by the Hosking integral. It is a conserved quantity that characterises magnetic helicity fluctuations and governs the turbulent decay when the mean magnetic helicity vanishes. As in earlier work, the ratio of the magnetic decay time to the Alfvén time is found to be approximately $50$ in the helical and non-helical cases. At intermediate times, the ratio can even reach a hundred. This ratio determines the endpoints of cosmological magnetic field evolution.

Recent years have witnessed a “juridical turn” in Chinese environmental governance, emphasising and encouraging legal mobilisation and litigation deployment by citizens to address environmental grievances in either individual or collective forms. This legalisation movement has spawned a budding, socio-legal field of Chinese environmental justice (CEJ), with an ostensible trend towards the legal empowerment of community organisations as “autonomous” litigants representing public interests. Drawing on extensive qualitative data, this study examines how plural, fluid state–society relations are manifested, animated, and permeated in the interactive processes of the CEJ. The analysis reveals four emergent modes of political–organisational connections—the state’s challengers, allies, servants, and subordinates—all of which depend on how the Chinese state interprets their motives for using the law and engaging in litigations, and anticipated effects their legal mobilisation can generate or diffuse in society. The bounded community mobilisation within the CEJ has also embodied the continuing state supremacy and the growing legal responsiveness in the Chinese approach to modernisation. Future theoretical and policy implications for the participatory effectiveness of community organisations in the CEJ are also discussed.