We undertake a comprehensive investigation into the distribution of in situ stars within Milky Way-like galaxies, leveraging TNG50 simulations and comparing their predictions with data from the H3 survey. Our analysis reveals that 28% of galaxies demonstrate reasonable agreement with H3, while only 12% exhibit excellent alignment in their profiles, regardless of the specific spatial cut employed to define in situ stars. To uncover the underlying factors contributing to deviations between TNG50 and H3 distributions, we scrutinise correlation coefficients among internal drivers (e.g. virial radius, star formation rate [SFR]) and merger-related parameters (such as the effective mass-ratio, mean distance, average redshift, total number of mergers, average spin-ratio, and maximum spin alignment between merging galaxies). Notably, we identify significant correlations between deviations from observational data and key parameters such as the median slope of virial radius, mean SFR values, and the rate of SFR change across different redshift scans. Furthermore, positive correlations emerge between deviations from observational data and parameters related to galaxy mergers. We validate these correlations using the Random Forest Regression method. Our findings underscore the invaluable insights provided by the H3 survey in unravelling the cosmic history of galaxies akin to the Milky Way, thereby advancing our understanding of galactic evolution and shedding light on the formation and evolution of Milky Way-like galaxies in cosmological simulations.

Insufficient sleep’s impact on cognitive and emotional function is well-documented, but its effects on social functioning remain understudied. This research investigates the influence of depressive symptoms on the relationship between sleep deprivation (SD) and social decision-making. Forty-two young adults were randomly assigned to either the SD or sleep control (SC) group. The SD group stayed awake in the laboratory, while the SC group had a normal night’s sleep at home. During the subsequent morning, participants completed a Trust Game (TG) in which a higher monetary offer distributed by them indicated more trust toward their partners. They also completed an Ultimatum Game (UG) in which a higher acceptance rate indicated more rational decision-making. The results revealed that depressive symptoms significantly moderated the effect of SD on trust in the TG. However, there was no interaction between group and depressive symptoms found in predicting acceptance rates in the UG. This study demonstrates that individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms display less trust after SD, highlighting the role of depressive symptoms in modulating the impact of SD on social decision-making. Future research should explore sleep-related interventions targeting the psychosocial dysfunctions of individuals with depression.

Contrafreeloading (CFL) refers to animals’ tendency to prefer obtaining food through effort rather than accessing food that is freely available. Researchers have proposed various hypotheses to explain this intriguing phenomenon, but few studies have provided a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing this behaviour. In this study, we observed the choice of alternative food containers in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) to investigate their CFL tendencies and the effects of pre-training, food deprivation, and effort required on the CFL tasks. The results showed that budgerigars did not exhibit significant difference in their first choices or the time interacting with less challenging versus more challenging food containers. Moreover, when evaluating each budgerigar’s CFL level, only half of them were identified as strong contrafreeloaders. Thus, we suggest that budgerigars exhibit an intermediate CFL level that lies somewhere between a strong tendency and the absence of such behaviour. Furthermore, we also found that food-deprived budgerigars tended to select less challenging food containers, and pre-trained budgerigars were more likely to choose highly challenging food containers than moderately challenging food containers, which means that the requirement of only a reasonable effort (access to food from moderately challenging food containers in this study) and the experience of pre-training act to enhance their CFL levels, whereas the requirement of greater effort and the experience of food deprivation act to decrease their CFL levels. Studying animal CFL can help understand why animals choose to expend effort to obtain food rather than accessing it for free, and it also has implications for setting feeding environments to enhance the animal welfare of captive and domesticated animals.

The aerodynamic deformation and breakup of wall-attached droplets in axisymmetric stagnation flow are investigated experimentally. A vertical shock tube is used to generate the shock wave accompanying the post-wave airflow, and the axisymmetric stagnation flow is formed through the impingement of an air stream on a solid wall. For the wall-attached droplets with initially hemispherical profile, four typical droplet deformation and breakup modes can be identified with the continuous increase of the droplet local Weber number, which are the vibrating mode, the compressing mode, the sheet thinning mode and the shear-induced entrainment mode. Quantitative analyses of droplet evolution dynamics are also conducted for the compressing mode and the sheet thinning mode, and the significant differences of air flow separation at the droplet lateral surface between these two modes are revealed. The potential flow model and the energy conservation model are further developed to predict the entire droplet deformation processes. The vibrating frequency and amplitude of droplets under the vibrating mode are predicted by a spring-mass model, and the surface perturbation wavelengths of droplets under the shear-induced entrainment mode are estimated based on the dispersion relation of Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. This work is proposed to give potential guidance for regulating the aerodynamic fragmentation of wall-attached droplets in practical engineering applications.

High-quality intergenerational relationships positively influence cognitive functioning in older parents. However, there is insufficient information on how they shape the trajectories of mothers’ and fathers’ cognitive functioning decline in multi-child families, owing to the complexity of intergenerational relationships, such as multi-dimensional and ambivalent natures and differences varying across children. Drawing on three waves of data (2014, 2016 and 2018) from a nationally representative survey – the China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey (N = 9,404) – we used the k-means clustering method to discern patterns of intergenerational relationships in multi-child Chinese families, as well as the growth curve models, to examine the associations between parent–child relationship types and the trajectories of older parents’ cognitive functioning. Five types of intergenerational relationship were identified: alienated, stressfully interacting, independent, beneficially interacting and tight-knit. We then investigated the associations between trajectories of cognitive functioning and the most distant type, the closest type, and the heterogeneity of parent–child relationships across multiple children. The most distant parent–child relationship was significantly related to cognitive functioning trajectories with the alienated (tight-knit) type associated with the lowest (highest) levels of cognitive functioning and the fastest (slowest) cognitive decline. However, the closest parent–child relationship was not significantly related to cognitive functioning trajectories. Moreover, greater variation in relationships with multiple children was correlated with lower levels of cognitive functioning and faster cognitive functioning decline. These associations were stronger among mothers than fathers. This study provides new insights into the potentially protective role of intergenerational relationships in older parents’ cognitive functioning and their gendered differences.

Although dietary factors have been examined as potential risk factors for liver cancer, the evidence is still inconclusive. Using a diet-wide association analysis, our research evaluated the associations of 126 foods and nutrients on the risk of liver cancer in a Chinese population. We obtained the diet consumption of 72,680 women in the Shanghai Women’s Health Study using baseline dietary questionnaires. The association between each food and nutrient and liver cancer risk was quantified by Cox regression model. A false discovery rate of 0.05 was used to determine the foods and nutrients which need to be verified. Totally 256 incident liver cancer cases were identified in 1,267,391 person-years during the follow-up duration. At the statistical significance level (P ≤ 0.05), higher intakes of cooked wheaten foods, pear, grape and copper were inversely associated with liver cancer risk, while spinach, leafy vegetables, eggplant and carrots showed the positive associations. After considering multiple comparisons, no dietary variable was associated with liver cancer risk. Similar findings were seen in the stratification, secondary and sensitivity analyses. Our findings observed no significant association between dietary factors and liver cancer risk after considering multiple comparisons in Chinese women. More evidence is needed to explore the associations between diet and female liver cancer occurrence.

Natural infection by Trichinella sp. has been reported in humans and more than 150 species of animals, especially carnivorous and omnivorous mammals. Although the presence of Trichinella sp. infection in wild boars (Sus scrofa) has been documented worldwide, limited information is known about Trichinella circulation in farmed wild boars in China. This study intends to investigate the prevalence of Trichinella sp. in farmed wild boars in China. Seven hundred and sixty-one (761) muscle samples from farmed wild boars were collected in Jilin Province of China from 2017 to 2020. The diaphragm muscles were examined by artificial digestion method. The overall prevalence of Trichinella in farmed wild boars was 0.53% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.51–0.55]. The average parasite loading was 0.076 ± 0.025 larvae per gram (lpg), and the highest burden was 0.21 lpg in a wild boar from Fusong city. Trichinella spiralis was the only species identified by multiplex polymerase chain reaction. The 5S rDNA inter-genic spacer region of Trichinella was amplified and sequenced. The results showed that the obtained sequence (GenBank accession number: OQ725583) shared 100% identity with the T. spiralis HLJ isolate (GenBank accession number: MH289505). Since the consumption of farmed wild boars is expected to increase in the future, these findings highlight the significance of developing exclusive guidelines for the processing of slaughtered farmed wild boar meat in China.

This paper presents a three-stage E-band low-noise amplifier (LNA) fabricated in a 28-nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor High-Performance Compact Plus process. The proposed E-band LNA achieves a peak gain of 16.8 dB, exhibiting a gain variation of less than ±0.5 dB across the frequency range of 67.8–90.4 GHz. The measured 3-dB gain bandwidth spans from 64 to 93.8 GHz, and the minimum measured noise figure (NF) is 3.8 dB. By employing a one-stage common-source with a two-stage cascode topology, the proposed E-band LNA demonstrates competitiveness in terms of gain flatness and NF when compared to recently published E-band CMOS LNAs.

As one of the most neglected zoonotic diseases, brucellosis has posed a serious threat to public health worldwide. This study is purposed to apply different machine learning models to improve the prediction accuracy of human brucellosis (HB) in Shaanxi, China from 2008 to 2020, under livestock husbandry intensification from a spatiotemporal perspective. We quantitatively evaluated the performance and suitability of ConvLSTM, RF, and LSTM models in epidemic forecasting, and investigated the spatial heterogeneity of how different factors drive the occurrence and transmission of HB in distinct sub-regions by using Kernel Density Analysis and Shapley Additional Explanations. Our findings demonstrated that ConvLSTM network yielded the best predictive performance with the lowest average RMSE of 13.875 and MAE values of 18.393. RF model generated an underestimated outcome while LSTM model had an overestimated one. In addition, climatic conditions, intensification of livestock keeping and socioeconomic status were identified as the dominant factors that drive the occurrence of HB in Shaanbei Plateau, Guanzhong Plain, and Shaannan Region, respectively. This work provided a comprehensive understanding of the potential risk of HB epidemics in Northwest China driven by both anthropogenic activities and natural environment, which can support further practice in disease control and prevention.

Characterised by the extensive use of obsidian, a blade-based tool inventory and microblade technology, the late Upper Palaeolithic lithic assemblages of the Changbaishan Mountains are associated with the increasingly cold climatic conditions of Marine Isotope Stage 2, yet most remain poorly dated. Here, the authors present new radiocarbon dates associated with evolving blade and microblade toolkits at Helong Dadong, north-east China. At 27 300–24 100 BP, the lower cultural layers contain some of the earliest microblade technology in north-east Asia and highlight the importance of the Changbaishan Mountains in understanding changing hunter-gatherer lifeways in this region during MIS 2.

Moral emotions such as shame, guilt and pride are crucial to young children’s social-emotional development. Due to the restrictions caused by hearing loss in accessing the social world, deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children may encounter extra difficulties in their development of moral emotions. However, little research so far has investigated the development trajectory of moral emotions during preschool years in DHH children. The present study used a longitudinal design to explore the development trajectories of shame, guilt, and pride, in a sample of 259 Chinese DHH and typically hearing (TH) preschoolers aged 2 to 6 years old. The results indicated that according to parent reports, DHH children manifested lower levels of guilt and pride compared to their TH peers, yet the manifested levels of shame, guilt, and pride increased throughout the preschool time at a similar pace in all children. Moreover, whilst guilt and pride contributed to increasing levels of psychosocial functioning over the preschool years, shame contributed to lower social competence and more externalizing behaviors in DHH and TH preschoolers. The outcomes imply that early interventions and adjustment to hearing loss could be useful to safeguard the social development of children with severe hearing loss, and cultural variances shall be taken into consideration when studying moral emotions in a Chinese cultural background.

Spermatogenesis is a highly complex process through which mature sperms are produced, and it requires three important stages; mitosis, meiosis and sperm formation. The expression of genes regulated by transcription factors at specific stages exerts important regulatory effects on the development process of germ cells. Male mice with overexpressed programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) (B7 homolog1) in the testis have infertility and abnormal sperm development, thereby exhibiting severe malformation and sloughing throughout spermatid maturation and collapsed and disorganized seminiferous epithelium structure. Furthermore, PD-L1 overexpression causes overexpression of cysteine-rich secretory protein 1 (CRISP1) in the epididymis and adversely affects or precludes sperm energization, sperm-pellucida binding and sperm-oocyte fusion. These findings suggest that CRISP1 and PD-L1 can interact with each other to induce male infertility and germ-cell dissociation.

Reward processing dysfunctions are considered a candidate mechanism underlying anhedonia and apathy in depression. Neuroimaging studies have documented that neurofunctional alterations in mesocorticolimbic circuits may neurally mediate these dysfunctions. However, common and distinct neurofunctional alterations during motivational and hedonic evaluation of monetary and natural rewards in depression have not been systematically examined. Here, we capitalized on pre-registered neuroimaging meta-analyses to (1) establish general reward-related neural alterations in depression, (2) determine common and distinct alterations during the receipt and anticipation of monetary v. natural rewards, and, (3) characterize the differences on the behavioral, network, and molecular level. The pre-registered meta-analysis (https://osf.io/ay3r9) included 633 depressed patients and 644 healthy controls and revealed generally decreased subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and striatal reactivity toward rewards in depression. Subsequent comparative analyses indicated that monetary rewards led to decreased hedonic reactivity in the right ventral caudate while natural rewards led to decreased reactivity in the bilateral putamen in depressed individuals. These regions exhibited distinguishable profiles on the behavioral, network, and molecular level. Further analyses demonstrated that the right thalamus and left putamen showed decreased activation during the anticipation of monetary reward. The present results indicate that distinguishable neurofunctional alterations may neurally mediate reward-processing alterations in depression, in particular, with respect to monetary and natural rewards. Given that natural rewards prevail in everyday life, our findings suggest that reward-type specific interventions are warranted and challenge the generalizability of experimental tasks employing monetary incentives to capture reward dysregulations in everyday life.

An experimental study on the aerobreakup of a wall-attached droplet induced by a shock wave is carried out in this work. The shock wave and the post-wave air stream are generated by a shock tube facility, and the dynamics of droplet breakup are captured through high-speed imaging from the side, the oblique front and the back views, respectively. The wall-attached droplets with different wettabilities are considered, including the hydrophobic, hemispherical and hydrophilic ones. For the convenience of analysis, droplets with different wettabilities are unified with the same equivalent radius and, thus, the same Weber number and Reynolds number. Different from the evolution of a free spherical droplet, it is observed that the hydrophobic droplet can develop ‘peak’ structures on the windward and leeward sides, respectively; while the hemispherical and hydrophilic droplets leave a liquid film on the wall. The occurrence of ‘peak’ structures is caused by the local standing vortex on the droplet windward and leeward sides, and the residual of a liquid film on a solid wall is related to the boundary layer near the wall. Through comparing the height, width and advancing distance of droplet deformation between the spherical droplet and the wall-attached droplets with different wettabilities, it is found that the wall will inhibit the deformation and fragmentation of droplets on the flow direction. The ‘peak’ and film structures are responsible for the deviation of the dimensionless width between spherical and wall-attached droplets. The ‘lip’ structure is related to the recirculation flow at the rear of the droplet, which causes the reverse of velocity on the surface. The radius of the ‘lip’ decreases with the decrease of contact angle. The Rayleigh–Taylor (R–T) and Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) instabilities of wall-attached and spherical droplets are also studied by experiments and theoretical analysis. With the decrease of contact angle, the development of the K–H instability hardly changes, while the R–T instability results in a smaller wavelength of perturbation on the windward side. This study is expected to give some guidance for regulating the aerodynamic fragmentation of droplets in engineering applications.