The hypersonic vehicle surfaces are subjected to intense thermal loads during atmospheric re-entry. Such conditions induce material ablation and structural deformation, potentially causing changes to aerodynamic configuration that critically endanger mission integrity. In this paper, a mathematical model of thermochemical non-equilibrium magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) at low magnetic Reynolds number is introduced to investigate the effects of MHD on the flow field. Variation of the magnetic pole angle (θ), the flow field profiles are quantitatively analysed, including gas component distributions and aerodynamic heating characteristics. Results indicate that the heat flux at the stagnation point initially decreases and then increases with θ increasing, reaching a minimum at θ = 60°. A portion of the heat flux from the blunt position is transferred to the shoulder (α between 30° and 60°). Notably, the shock standoff distance also shows a non-monotonic trend with θ increasing, peaking at θ = 30°, mirroring the effect of θ on the stagnation point heat flux. As θ increases, the component of the Lorentz force along the X-direction gradually increases, with its peak position corresponding to the shock standoff distance. The electrons and nitrogen atoms are primarily concentrated at the blunt nose, while nitric oxide and oxygen atoms are predominantly distributed along the vehicle wall. The dissociation region of the gas is influenced by the shock standoff distance, which increases as the shock standoff distance increases. At θ = 30°, the concentration of oxygen atoms, nitrogen atoms, nitric oxide molecules and electrons on the stagnation point line reaches its maximum. The present study provides a theoretical foundation for the application of MHD thermal protection methods on hypersonic vehicles.

In this paper, a brand-new adaptive fault-tolerant non-affine integrated guidance and control method based on reinforcement learning is proposed for a class of skid-to-turn (STT) missile. Firstly, considering the non-affine characteristics of the missile, a new non-affine integrated guidance and control (NAIGC) design model is constructed. For the NAIGC system, an adaptive expansion integral system is introduced to address the issue of challenging control brought on by the non-affine form of the control signal. Subsequently, the hyperbolic tangent function and adaptive boundary estimation are utilised to lessen the jitter due to disturbances in the control system and the deviation caused by actuator failures while taking into account the uncertainty in the NAIGC system. Importantly, actor-critic is introduced into the control framework, where the actor network aims to deal with the multiple uncertainties of the subsystem and generate the control input based on the critic results. Eventually, not only is the stability of the NAIGC closed-loop system demonstrated using Lyapunov theory, but also the validity and superiority of the method are verified by numerical simulations.

Ultrafast optical probing is a widely used method of underdense plasma diagnostic. In relativistic plasma, the motion blur limits spatial resolution in the direction of motion. For many high-power lasers the initial pulse duration of 30–50 fs results in a 10–15 μm motion blur, which can be reduced by probe pulse post-compression. Here we used the compression after compressor approach [Phys.-Usp. 62, 1096 (2019); JINST 17 P07035 (2022)], where spectral broadening is performed in thin optical plates and is followed by reflections from negative-dispersion mirrors. Our initially low-intensity probe beam was down-collimated for a more efficient spectral broadening and higher probe-to-self-emission intensity ratio. The setup is compact, fits in a vacuum chamber and can be implemented within a short experimental time slot. We proved that the compressed pulse retained the high quality necessary for plasma probing.

Schistosoma species have traditionally been arranged in groups based on egg morphology, geographical origins, and the genus or family of snail intermediate host. One of these groups is the ‘S. indicum group’ comprising species from Asia that use pulmonate snails as intermediate hosts. DNA sequences were obtained from the four members of this group (S. indicum, S. spindale, S. nasale and S. incognitum) to provide information concerning their phylogenetic relationships with other Asian and African species and species groups. The sequences came from the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) of the ribosomal gene repeat, part of the 28S ribosomal RNA gene (28S), and part of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) gene. Tree analyses using both distance and parsimony methods showed the S. indicum group not to be monophyletic. Schistosoma indicum, S. spindale and S. nasale were clustered among African schistosomes, while S. incognitum was placed as sister to the African species (using ITS2 and 28S nucleotide sequences and CO1 amino acid sequences), or as sister to all other species of Schistosoma (CO1 nucleotide sequences). Based on the present molecular data, a scenario for the evolution of the S. indicum group is discussed.

The status of Schistosoma sinensium (samples from Thailand and from Sichuan, China) relative to other species of the genus Schistosoma was investigated using DNA sequences from the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) gene (partial) and the nuclear ribosomal DNA second internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2). Trees inferred from these sequences place S. sinensium as sister to the S. japonicum group and suggest a basal position in the clade utilizing snails of the family Pomatiopsidae. The sequence differences between specimens of S. sinensium from China and Thailand are at least as great as between S. malayensis and S. mekongi. Schistosoma sinensium is probably best regarded as a species complex.

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.

We report the experimental results of the commissioning phase in the 10 PW laser beamline of the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF). The peak power reaches 2.4 PW on target without the last amplifying during the experiment. The laser energy of 72 ± 9 J is directed to a focal spot of approximately 6 μm diameter (full width at half maximum) in 30 fs pulse duration, yielding a focused peak intensity around 2.0 × 1021 W/cm2. The first laser-proton acceleration experiment is performed using plain copper and plastic targets. High-energy proton beams with maximum cut-off energy up to 62.5 MeV are achieved using copper foils at the optimum target thickness of 4 μm via target normal sheath acceleration. For plastic targets of tens of nanometers thick, the proton cut-off energy is approximately 20 MeV, showing ring-like or filamented density distributions. These experimental results reflect the capabilities of the SULF-10 PW beamline, for example, both ultrahigh intensity and relatively good beam contrast. Further optimization for these key parameters is underway, where peak laser intensities of 1022–1023 W/cm2 are anticipated to support various experiments on extreme field physics.

Background: Chordomas are rare malignant skull-base/spine cancers with devastating neurological morbidities and mortality. Unfortunately, no reliable prognostic factors exist to guide treatment decisions. This work identifies DNA methylation-based prognostic chordoma subtypes that are detectable non-invasively in plasma. Methods: Sixty-eight tissue samples underwent DNA methylation profiling and plasma methylomes were obtained for available paired samples. Immunohistochemical staining and publicly available methylation and gene expression data were utilized for validation. Results: Unsupervised clustering identified two prognostic tissue clusters (log-rank p=0.0062) predicting disease-specific survival independent of clinical factors (Multivariable Cox: HR=16.5, 95%CI: 2.8-96, p=0.0018). The poorer-performing cluster showed immune-related pathway promoter hypermethylation and higher immune cell abundance within tumours, which was validated with external RNA-seq data and immunohistochemical staining. The better-performing cluster showed higher tumour cellularity. Similar clusters were seen in external DNA methylation data. Plasma methylome-based models distinguished chordomas from differential diagnoses in independent testing sets (AUROC=0.84, 95%CI: 0.52-1.00). Plasma methylomes were highly correlated with tissue-based signals for both clusters (r=0.69 & 0.67) and leave-one-out models identified the correct cluster in all plasma cases. Conclusions: Prognostic molecular chordoma subgroups are for the first time identified, characterized, and validated. Plasma methylomes can detect and subtype chordomas which may transform chordoma treatment with personalized approaches tailored to prognosis.

In this study, an active defence cooperative guidance (ADCG) law that enables cheap and low-speed airborne defence missiles with low manoeuverability to accurately intercept fast and expensive attack missiles with high manoeuverability was designed to enhance the capability of aircraft for active defence. This guidance law relies on the line-of-sight (LOS) guidance method, and it realises active defence by adjusting the geometric LOS relationship involving an attack missile, a defence missile and an aircraft. We use a nonlinear integral sliding surface and an improved second-order sliding mode reaching law to design the guidance law. This can not only reduce the chattering phenomenon in the guidance command, but it can also ensure that the system can reach the sliding surface from any initial position in a finite time. Simulations were carried out to verify the proposed law using four cases: different manoeuvering modes of the aircraft, different speed ratios of the attack and defence missiles, different reaching laws applied to the ADCG law and a robustness analysis. The results show that the proposed guidance law can enable a defence missile to intercept an attack missile by simultaneously using information about the relative motions of the attack missile and the aircraft. It is also highly robust in the presence of errors and noise.

Weapon target allocation (WTA) is an effective method to solve the battlefield fire optimisation problem, which plays an important role in intelligent automated decision-making. We researched the multitarget allocation problem to maximise the attack effectiveness when multiple interceptors cooperatively attack multiple ground targets. Firstly, an effective and reasonable fitness function is established, based on the situation between the interceptors and targets, by comprehensively considering the relative range, relative angle, speed, capture probability and radiation source matching performance and thoroughly evaluating them based on the advantage of the attack effectiveness. Secondly, the optimisation performance of the particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm is adaptively improved. We propose an adaptive simulated annealing-particle swarm optimisation (SA-PSO) algorithm by introducing the simulated annealing algorithm into the adaptive PSO algorithm. The proposed algorithm can enhance the convergence speed and overcome the disadvantage of the PSO algorithm easily falling into a local extreme point. Finally, a simulation example is performed in a scenario where ten interceptors cooperate to attack eight ground targets; comparative experiments are conducted between the adaptive SA-PSO algorithm and PSO algorithm. The simulation results indicate that the proposed adaptive SA-PSO algorithm demonstrates great performance in convergence speed and global optimisation capabilities, and a maximised attack effectiveness can be guaranteed.

The epidemic of tuberculosis has posed a serious burden in Qinghai province, it is necessary to clarify the epidemiological characteristics and spatial-temporal distribution of TB for future prevention and control measures. We used descriptive epidemiological methods and spatial statistical analysis including spatial correlation and spatial-temporal analysis in this study. Furthermore, we applied an exponential smoothing model for TB epidemiological trend forecasting. Of 43 859 TB cases, the sex ratio was 1.27:1 (M:F), and the average annual TB registered incidence was 70.00/100 000 of 2009–2019. More cases were reported in March and April, and the worst TB stricken regions were the prefectures of Golog and Yushu. High TB registered incidences were seen in males, farmers and herdsmen, Tibetans, or elderly people. 7132 cases were intractable, which were recurrent, drug resistant, or co-infected with other infections. Three likely cases clusters with significant high risk were found by spatial-temporal scan on data of 2009–2019. The exponential smoothing winters' additive model was selected as the best-fitting model to forecast monthly TB cases in the future. This research indicated that TB in Qinghai is still a serious threaten to the local residents' health. Multi-departmental collaboration and funds special for TB treatments and control are still needed, and the exponential smoothing model is promising which could be applied for forecasting of TB epidemic trend in this high-altitude province.

This study was a retrospective multicentre cohort study of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) diagnosed at 24 hospitals in Jiangsu province, China as of 15 March 2020. The primary outcome was the occurrence of acute respiratory failure during hospital stay. Of 625 patients, 56 (9%) had respiratory failure. Some selected demographic, epidemiologic, clinical and laboratory features as well as radiologic features at admission and treatment during hospitalisation were significantly different in patients with and without respiratory failure. The multivariate logistic analysis indicated that age (in years) (odds ratio [OR], 1.07; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03–1.10; P = 0.0002), respiratory rate (breaths/minute) (OR, 1.23; 95% CI: 1.08–1.40; P = 0.0020), lymphocyte count (109/l) (OR, 0.18; 95% CI: 0.05–0.69; P = 0.0157) and pulmonary opacity score (per 5%) (OR, 1.38; 95% CI: 1.19–1.61; P < 0.0001) at admission were associated with the occurrence of respiratory failure. Older age, increased respiratory rate, decreased lymphocyte count and greater pulmonary opacity score at admission were independent risk factors of respiratory failure in patients with COVID-19. Patients having these risk factors need to be intensively managed during hospitalisation.