The pulse duration is a critical parameter of picosecond-petawatt laser systems because it directly affects the results of high-energy-density physics experiments. This study systematically investigated the effects of the spectral width, central wavelength and beam-pointing deviations on pulse duration stability at the SG-II facility. A theoretical analysis of the relationship between spectra and pulse duration is conducted to quantify the impact on pulse duration stability, and the results are further validated through experimental measurements. In addition, beam-pointing deviations at the stretcher significantly affect the pulse duration. For example, a 27 μrad deviation can induce a 30% pulse duration variation. In contrast, the compressor exhibits greater robustness. Based on simulation and experimental results, we identify operational tolerance ranges for spectral width and beam-pointing deviation to maintain pulse duration stability within 5% at the SG-II facility. These findings provide critical guidance for optimizing the performance and reliability of chirped-pulse amplification/optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification-based high-power laser systems.

Corporations use financial contributions to gain access to influential policymakers. How do these actors respond when officeholders violate widely held norms, such as accepting the results of free and fair elections? We argue that businesses are sensitive to norm violations because they balance their economic interests with accountability demands from employees and other stakeholders. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that legislators who supported Donald Trump’s false claims about a ‘stolen election’ experienced a significant decline in contributions from Fortune 500 PACs in 2021 and 2022. Additionally, our analysis reveals that companies continue to contribute more to party leaders and members of key committees, consistent with our hypothesis. These findings suggest that corporations are willing to balance the interests of their two audiences by sending signals of disapproval towards those who violate established norms while continuing to lobby key lawmakers.

Clinical and preclinical data about perinatal inflammation show its implication in brain injuries leading to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For instance, Group B Streptococcus (GBS) chorioamnionitis generates autistic manifestations in the progeny. However, the precise way(s) how chorioamnionitis exerts its noxious effect on the central nervous system remains to be define. The pathogen-induced inflammatory response effects on the permeability of the blood brain barrier (BBB) have been documented in the mature brain. No study deals with the effect of GBS-induced chorioamnionitis, on the fetal BBB, even though it is one of the most common infection affecting the fetal environment. Given that dysfunctions of several key cells and molecules from the BBB seem to be involved in the pathogenesis of ASD from genetic and/or environmental origins, we hypothesized that pathogen-induced chorioamnionitis affects structurally and functionally the BBB. We used a well-established preclinical model of GBS chorioamnionitis leading to ASD phenotype in male offspring. We document a significant decrease of albumin permeability of the BBB in the white and gray matters of fetuses exposed versus unexposed to GBS chorioamnionitis. In line with this result, a significant increase in the expression of claudin-5 – component of tight junctions of the BBB – is detected in endothelial cells from BBB exposed to chorioamnionitis. Altogether, our results show that beyond genetic determinants, environmental factors such as bacterial infections affect the integrity of the BBB and might be involved in the fetal programming of ASD.

The use of extended reality (XR) for education of healthcare personnel (HCP) is increasing. XR equipment is reusable and often shared between HCP in clinical areas; however, it may not include manufacturer’s instructions for use (MIFU) in healthcare settings. Considerations for the selection of equipment and development of cleaning and disinfection protocols are described.

In this article I argue that the climate crisis may emerge as a new arena for status competition among states, enabled through the grafting of decarbonization and green-energy policies onto the status order’s existing symbolic-materialist logic. Status is often thought of as a destabilizing force in world politics, as its pursuit so often pushes states toward violent and financially wasteful policies of social aggrandizement. But this belief elides two points: that the status order and its rules of membership and esteem are malleable and subject to change; and that the emergence of different and new status symbols can also push status-seeking toward more prosocial outcomes. Rather than see these changes as occurring through explicit normative transformation, however, I argue that the status order is most likely to change surreptitiously when entrepreneurs can graft new status symbols onto an order’s underlying tenets, thus concealing but also producing change. I apply this grafting theory to the climate crisis in arguing that (1) highly visible steps taken to effect the green-energy revolution can be legibly grafted onto the existing status order; (2) this grafting technique was already evident in the Biden administration’s increased framing of the climate as an arena of status competition against China; and (3) in an era of renewed great power rivalry, status competition may at least compel states to make the kinds of costly and needed investments in climate mitigation they eschewed earlier.

We study infinite groups interpretable in power bounded T-convex, V-minimal or p-adically closed fields. We show that if G is an interpretable definably semisimple group (i.e., has no definable infinite normal abelian subgroups) then, up to a finite index subgroup, it is definably isogenous to a group $G_1\times G_2$, where $G_1$ is a K-linear group and $G_2$ is a $\mathbf {k}$-linear group. The analysis is carried out by studying the interaction of G with four distinguished sorts: the valued field K, the residue field $\mathbf {k}$, the value group $\Gamma $, and the closed $0$-balls $K/\mathcal {O}$.

We investigate the relationship between affine and Stein varieties in the context of rigid geometry. We show that the two concepts are much more closely related than in complex geometry, e.g. they are equivalent for surfaces. This rests on the density of algebraic functions in analytic functions. One key ingredient to prove such a density statement is an extension result for Cartier divisors.

Yogurt acid whey (YAW) contains significant amounts of calcium as well as small amounts of protein, thus the idea of its reintroduction, especially of its calcium content, to the food chain is attractive. Calcium in milk is mainly complexed with casein micelles, whereas YAW contains only small amounts of protein, with no caseins at all, differing substantially from milk in the form in which calcium occurs. Therefore, the objective of the present research paper was to evaluate whether calcium bioavailability differs between YAW and milk. Following the INFOGEST protocol for simulated digestion and by coupling it with the Caco-2 model for intestinal absorption, calcium in YAW had higher bioaccessibility than calcium in milk. However, there were no differences in calcium transport by the intestinal cells and the transcription level of calcium absorption-related genes (VDR, TRPV6, S100G and PMCA1). Lastly, there were no differences in calcium bioaccessibility and the transcription of the calcium absorption-related genes between YAW samples of bovine, ovine or caprine origin obtained from Greek dairy products enterprises. In conclusion, despite the major differences in the protein profile between YAW and milk, there were no differences in calcium transport by the cells, but YAW was associated with higher calcium bioaccessibility, which ultimately may result in higher amount of absorbed calcium.

Alliance formation typically entails some risk of abandonment, wherein an ally may not honor its obligations in the future. When potential security partners’ preferences are misaligned, this risk looms large, discouraging mutually beneficial investment in an alliance. How can a prospective ally credibly reassure an uncertain patron that their preferences align, to mitigate abandonment risks and elicit a security commitment? We show formally that pre-alliance bargaining with third parties is one way to do so. When the patron holds abandonment concerns, the prospective ally can reassure the patron by making greater concessions to the patron’s existing allies, but more hard-line demands of its rivals. This finding implies that the prospect of an alliance can alternately promote conflict with a prospective patron’s enemies and forestall conflict with its friends. Indeed, we show that incentives for pre-alliance reassurance can result in war, even with perfect asset divisibility, no commitment problems, and complete information among the belligerents. The results are illustrated by China’s intervention in the Korean War and Australia’s post-World War II rapprochement with Japan, which were motivated largely to foster security cooperation with the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively.

This study aimed to explore the effect of various feedback types on word learning in preschool children, with consideration of the word’s morpho-phonological structure. Sixty-three five-year-old children participated in three sessions of learning artificial words derived from pseudo-roots in Hebrew, with half constructed using established morpho-phonological patterns. Participants received either no feedback, verification feedback, corrective feedback, or verification plus corrective feedback. The training encompassed word identification and production. Accuracy and reaction time (RT) were measured. The results indicated that corrective feedback produced the highest accuracy and fastest RTs. Providing verification feedback led to improved performance compared to no feedback. While words with existing morpho-phonological patterns were learned more efficiently, the positive impact of corrective feedback remained consistent across both word types. These findings offer practical implications for optimizing word learning conditions, highlighting the importance of corrective feedback in word learning, and more broadly, aligning the feedback type to the learning task.

Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP) are critical in key stages of food production and processing. After manufacturing, slicing process can serve as a point of contamination, potentially compromising the quality and shelf life of mozzarella. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of SSOP on the quantification and diversity of psychrotrophic bacteria with proteolytic and lipolytic potential in mozzarella before and after industrial slicing. Psychrotrophic bacteria were isolated, phenotypically assessed for spoilage potential under mesophilic and psychrotrophic conditions, analysed for diversity using dendrograms of genetic similarity and identified by partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. The mean psychrotrophic counts were 3.77 (±0.83) log CFU/mL before slicing and 3.58 (±0.51) log CFU/mL in the sliced product, indicating a non-significant reduction (p < 0.05). Regarding spoilage potential, none of the 233 isolates evaluated exhibited proteolytic activity under psychrotrophic conditions. However, psychrotrophic lipolytic activity was predominant both before and after slicing. The species Lactobacillus delbrueckii, which is part of the saccharolytic inoculum used to reduce the pH of the curd during cheese production, was the main proteolytic bacteria under mesophilic conditions (35°C) in both before and after sliced samples. Although the bacterial counts indicated the full efficiency of the slicer’s SSOP, the microbial diversity analysis revealed the inclusion of Staphylococcus succinus, Staphylococcus hominis, Enterococcus faecalis and Klebsiella pneumoniae during the slicing process, albeit at low levels. Therefore, relying solely on psychrotrophic quantification may not be sufficient to attest the efficiency of the slicer’s SSOP. Even under controlled industrial conditions, spoilage bacteria from handling and environmental sources may be introduced into sliced mozzarella. Methods for improving the microbiological quality of the mozzarella pieces prior to slicing, as well as the intensification of sanitary procedures, must be reviewed and implemented to improve the shelf life and commercial potential of sliced mozzarella.

This article aims to expand the epistemological limits of the Indian Ocean by examining distinct examples that link the African and Indian worlds through objects, media and unconventional trajectories of exchange. While the histories of trade, migration and the circulation of objects between India and Africa, and along the western Indian Ocean rim, have been studied extensively, this article focuses on minor transnational circulations that compel us to reimagine African–Indian exchanges. In other words, I trace the transits of objects to emphasize non-linear mobilities, other networks, and rhizomatic imaginations of Africa and India that connect distant places and practices. First, I look at the arrival of African saints in western India during pre-modern times and their intertwined histories with precolonial empires and the Indian Ocean slave trade. Trade items and ritual objects associated with these saints connect them to terrains of exchange in the Misr (Egypt), Al-Habash (Ethiopia) and Nubia (Sudan and Nile Valley) regions, all important nodes that linked West Africa and the Indian Ocean through complex trans-Sahelian networks of traders, pilgrims and enslaved people. I then examine the circulation of trade goods, such as beads, textiles and umbrellas, that were produced in India for West African markets during the transatlantic slave trade, illustrating how colonial transcontinental networks used objects from the Indian Ocean to support their Atlantic enterprises through a complex system of commodity exchanges. The central objective is to demonstrate how lesser-known processes of circulation and transversal ontologies reveal the fraught and interconnected histories of the Africana Atlantic and Indian Ocean universe.

We present a number of measures and techniques to characterise and effectively construct quasi-isodynamic stellarators within the near-axis framework, without the need to resort to the computation of global equilibria. These include measures of the reliability of the model (including aspect-ratio limits and the appearance of ripple wells), quantification of omnigeneity through $\epsilon _{\mathrm{eff}}$, measure and construction of MHD-stabilised fields, and the sensitivity of the field to the pressure gradient. The paper presents, discusses and gives examples of all of these, for which expansions to second order are crucial. This opens the door to the exploration of how key underlying choices of the field design govern the interaction of desired properties (‘trade-offs’) and provides a practical toolkit to perform efficient optimisation directly within the space of near-axis quasi-isodynamic configurations.

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.