In the present study, we investigate the modulation effects of particles on compressible turbulent boundary layers at a Mach number of 6, employing high-fidelity direct numerical simulations based on the Eulerian–Lagrangian point-particle approach. Our findings reveal that the mean and fluctuating velocities in particle-laden flows exhibit similarities to incompressible flows under compressibility transformations and semi-local viscous scaling. With increasing particle mass loading, the reduction in Reynolds shear stress and the increase in particle feedback force constitute competing effects, leading to a non-monotonic variation in skin friction, particularly in turbulence over cold walls. Furthermore, dilatational motions near the wall, manifested as travelling-wave structures, persist under the influence of particles. However, these structures are significantly weakened due to the suppression of solenoidal bursting events and the negative work exerted by the particle feedback force. These findings align with the insight of Yu et al. (J. Fluid. Mech., vol. 984, 2024, A44), who demonstrated that dilatational motions are generated by the vortices associated with intense bursting events, rather than acting as evolving perturbations beneath velocity streaks. The attenuation of travelling-wave structures at higher particle mass loadings also contributes to the reduction in the intensities of wall shear stress and heat flux fluctuations, as well as the probability of extreme events. These results highlight the potential of particle-laden flows to mitigate aerodynamic forces and thermal loads in high-speed vehicles.

This study examined the sour grapes/sweet lemons rationalization through 2 conditions: ‘attainable’ (sweet lemons) and ‘unattainable’ (sour grapes), reflecting China’s 2019-nCoV vaccination strategy. The aim was to find ways to change people’s beliefs and preferences regarding vaccines by easing their safety concerns and encouraging more willingness to get vaccinated. An online survey was conducted from January 22 to 27, 2021, with 3,123 residents across 30 provinces and municipalities in the Chinese mainland. The direction of belief and preference changed in line with the sour grapes/sweet lemons rationalization. Using hypothetical and real contrasts, we compared those for whom the vaccine was relatively unattainable (‘sour grapes’ condition) with those who could get the vaccine easily (‘sweet lemons’). Whether the vaccine was attainable was determined in the early stage of the vaccine roll-out by membership in a select group of workers that was supposed to be vaccinated to the greatest extent possible, or, by being in the second stage when the vaccine was available to all. The attainable conditions demonstrated higher evaluation in vaccine safety, higher willingness to be vaccinated, and lower willingness to wait and see. Hence, we propose that the manipulation of vaccine attainability, which formed the basis of the application of sour grapes/sweet lemons rationalization, can be utilized as a means to manipulate the choice architecture to nudge individuals to ease vaccine safety concerns, reducing wait-and-see tendencies, and enhancing vaccination willingness. This approach can expedite universal vaccination and its associated benefits in future scenarios resembling the 2019-nCoV vaccine rollout.

Let $X=GC$ be a group, where C is a cyclic group and G is either a generalized quaternion group or a dihedral group such that $C\cap G=1$. In this paper, X is characterized and, moreover, a complete classification for $X$ is given, provided that G is a generalized quaternion group and C is core-free.

The discovery that blazars dominate the extra-galactic $\gamma$-ray sky is a triumph in the Fermi era. However, the exact location of $\gamma$-ray emission region still remains in debate. Low-synchrotron-peaked blazars (LSPs) are estimated to produce high-energy radiation through the external Compton process, thus their emission regions are closely related to the external photon fields. We employed the seed factor approach proposed by Georganopoulos et al. It directly matches the observed seed factor of each LSP with the characteristic seed factors of external photon fields to locate the $\gamma$-ray emission region. A sample of 1 138 LSPs with peak frequencies and peak luminosities was adopted to plot a histogram distribution of observed seed factors. We also collected some spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of historical flare states to investigate the variation of $\gamma$-ray emission region. Those SEDs were fitted by both quadratic and cubic functions using the Markov-chain Monte Carlo method. Furthermore, we derived some physical parameters of blazars and compared them with the constraint of internal $\gamma\gamma$-absorption. We find that dusty torus dominates the soft photon fields of LSPs and most $\gamma$-ray emission regions of LSPs are located at 1–10 pc. The soft photon fields could also transition from dusty torus to broad line region and cosmic microwave background in different flare states. Our results suggest that the cubic function is better than the quadratic function to fit the SEDs.

As an environmental factor, temperature impacts the distribution of species and influences interspecific competition. The molecular chaperones encoded by small heat shock proteins (sHsps) are essential for rapid, appropriate responses to environmental stress. This study focuses on Hsp20.8, which encodes a temperature-responsive sHsp in Liriomyza trifolii, an insect pest that infests both agricultural and ornamental crops. Hsp20.8 expression was highest at 39℃ in L. trifolii pupae and adults, and expression levels were greater in pupae than in adults. Recombinant Hsp20.8 was expressed in Escherichia coli and conferred a higher survival rate than the empty vector to bacterial cells exposed to heat stress. RNA interference experiments were conducted using L. trifolii adults and prepupae and the knockdown of Hsp20.8 expression increased mortality in L. trifolii during heat stress. The results expand our understanding of sHsp function in Liriomyza spp. and the ongoing adaptation of this pest to climate change. In addition, this study is also important for predicting the distribution of invasive species and proposing new prevention and control strategies based on temperature adaptation.

This paper investigates the comprehension of long and short passives in 15 Mandarin preschool children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) (aged 4;2–5;11 years), 15 Typically Developing Age-matched (TDA) (aged 4;3–5;8 years) children, and 15 Typically Developing Younger (TDY) (aged 3;2–4;3 years) children by using the picture-sentence matching task. The results reveal that children with DLD encounter more difficulty comprehending long passives compared with short passive, that they perform worse on the comprehension task than TDA children and TDY children, and that this population is more likely to commit thematic role reversal errors and point to pictures with the incorrect agent (patient) than typically developing children. Given that Mandarin passives are Topic Structures, we maintain that children with DLD are insensitive to the edge feature of the moved element in long passives, leading to Relativized Minimality effect and causing the asymmetry between the comprehension of long and short passives. These results align well with the Edge Feature Underspecification Hypothesis. Errors found in the children with DLD in the comprehension task point toward impaired syntactic knowledge and the lexical semantic deficit.

Traditional active flutter suppression controllers are designed based on model. However, as the aircraft becomes more and more powerful, the modeling of aeroelastic system becomes difficult and the model-free requirement of controller design becomes more and more urgent. The complexity of industrial processes has brought about massive operational data generated online. Aviation industry development has entered the era of big data. Breaking through the traditional theoretical framework, mining the correlation, evolution and dynamic characteristics of the system from the data is the inevitable choice to meet this demand. In this paper, a data-driven model-free controller is designed, which relies on ridge regression of the input and output variation at each operating point of the closed-loop controlled system to recursively derive the iterative format of the control signals and ensure the numerical stability of the signals. The controller can only use the real-time measurement of the system’s online input and output data for continuous correction, to achieve the purpose of flutter suppression. Then flutter suppression of a three-degree-of-freedom binary wing with a control surface is studied, and the superiority of model-free controller is demonstrated by comparing it with the optimal controller.

Rodents and shrews are major reservoirs of various pathogens that are related to zoonotic infectious diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate co-infections of zoonotic pathogens in rodents and shrews trapped in four provinces of China. We sampled different rodent and shrew communities within and around human settlements in four provinces of China and characterised several important zoonotic viral, bacterial, and parasitic pathogens by PCR methods and phylogenetic analysis. A total of 864 rodents and shrews belonging to 24 and 13 species from RODENTIA and EULIPOTYPHLA orders were captured, respectively. For viral pathogens, two species of hantavirus (Hantaan orthohantavirus and Caobang orthohantavirus) were identified in 3.47% of rodents and shrews. The overall prevalence of Bartonella spp., Anaplasmataceae, Babesia spp., Leptospira spp., Spotted fever group Rickettsiae, Borrelia spp., and Coxiella burnetii were 31.25%, 8.91%, 4.17%, 3.94%, 3.59%, 3.47%, and 0.58%, respectively. Furthermore, the highest co-infection status of three pathogens was observed among Bartonella spp., Leptospira spp., and Anaplasmataceae with a co-infection rate of 0.46%. Our results suggested that species distribution and co-infections of zoonotic pathogens were prevalent in rodents and shrews, highlighting the necessity of active surveillance for zoonotic pathogens in wild mammals in wider regions.

This paper studies the synchronization control of the blanket remote maintenance robot (BRMR) of the China fusion engineering test reactor (CFETR). First, the general state space mathematical model of BRMR was established by using a physical-based method. Second, based on the receding horizon optimization of model predictive control (MPC) and cross-coupling error reduction in cross-coupling control (CCC), the innovative MPC-CCC controller was proposed to realize the single-system and multisystem error convergence and high accuracy transportation of blanket through the high accuracy synchronization control of BRMR. Third, to verify the control effectiveness of the MPC-CCC controller, two types of simulations and experiments were implied compared with the original proportional-integral (PI) controller in Mover. Results showed that simulation and experiments were highly consistent. It is found that the use of an MPC-CCC controller can result in up to a 70% reduction in displacement error and up to a 59% reduction in synchronization error compared to the PI controller. And the accuracy of the MPC-CCC controller satisfies the real requirement of the maintenance process of the blanket. This work provides the theoretical basis and practical experience for the highly stable, safe, and efficient maintenance of blankets in the future.

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.

Liriomyza trifolii is a significant pest of vegetable and ornamental crops across the globe. Microwave radiation has been used for controlling pests in stored products; however, there are few reports on the use of microwaves for eradicating agricultural pests such as L. trifolii, and its effects on pests at the molecular level is unclear. In this study, we show that microwave radiation inhibited the emergence of L. trifolii pupae. Transcriptomic studies of L. trifolii indicated significant enrichment of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in ‘post-translational modification, protein turnover, chaperones’, ‘sensory perception of pain/transcription repressor complex/zinc ion binding’ and ‘insulin signaling pathway’ when analyzed with the Clusters of Orthologous Groups, Gene Ontology and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes databases, respectively. The top DEGs were related to reproduction, immunity and development and were significantly expressed after microwave radiation. Interestingly, there was no significant difference in the expression of genes encoding heat shock proteins or antioxidant enzymes in L. trifolii treated with microwave radiation as compared to the untreated control. The expression of DEGs encoding cuticular protein and protein takeout were silenced by RNA interference, and the results showed that knockdown of these two DEGs reduced the survival of L. trifolii exposed to microwave radiation. The results of this study help elucidate the molecular response of L. trifolii exposed to microwave radiation and provide novel ideas for control.

Hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) is one of the rate-determining enzymes in the hydrolysis of TAG, playing a crucial role in lipid metabolism. However, the role of HSL-mediated lipolysis in systemic nutrient homoeostasis has not been intensively understood. Therefore, we used CRISPR/Cas9 technique and Hsl inhibitor (HSL-IN-1) to establish hsla-deficient (hsla-/-) and Hsl-inhibited zebrafish models, respectively. As a result, the hsla-/- zebrafish showed retarded growth and reduced oxygen consumption rate, accompanied with higher mRNA expression of the genes related to inflammation and apoptosis in liver and muscle. Furthermore, hsla-/- and HSL-IN-1-treated zebrafish both exhibited severe fat deposition, whereas their expressions of the genes related to lipolysis and fatty acid oxidation were markedly reduced. The TLC results also showed that the dysfunction of Hsl changed the whole-body lipid profile, including increasing the content of TG and decreasing the proportion of phospholipids. In addition, the systemic metabolic pattern was remodelled in hsla-/- and HSL-IN-1-treated zebrafish. The dysfunction of Hsl lowered the glycogen content in liver and muscle and enhanced the utilisation of glucose plus the expressions of glucose transporter and glycolysis genes. Besides, the whole-body protein content had significantly decreased in the hsla-/- and HSL-IN-1-treated zebrafish, accompanied with the lower activation of the mTOR pathway and enhanced protein and amino acid catabolism. Taken together, Hsl plays an essential role in energy homoeostasis, and its dysfunction would cause the disturbance of lipid catabolism but enhanced breakdown of glycogen and protein for energy compensation.

Over-the-rotor liner exhibits the potential to further attenuate turbofan noise, but the physics involved remain to be explored. In this paper, a three-dimensional coupled singularity method is proposed to investigate the flow-acoustic coupling effects of axially overlapping annular rotor and finite-length liner in subsonic flow. The formulation adopts the orthogonal basis expansion of the generated disturbances in terms of the hard-walled duct modes. The sound scatterings at the rotor and the liner are then characterized, respectively, by the underdetermined dipole and monopole distributions. We derive a simultaneous solution to the coupled unsteady rotor and liner responses, which ensures that the resultant perturbed field satisfies both the impermeable boundary condition on the blade surfaces and the impedance boundary condition on the lined wall. The effect of a perforated porous-material liner on the wake–rotor interaction tones is investigated. The analysis reveals that for the sound field of varying mode and frequency characteristics, moving the inlet liner to the over-the-rotor location generally leads to limited loss or even an increase of upstream sound absorption, along with additional acoustic benefits in the aft duct. The flow-acoustic coupling between the axially overlapping rotor and liner is shown to alleviate significantly the unsteady blade loading and meanwhile intensify the fluid particle oscillation through the acoustically treated wall. Sound source reduction and sound dissipation enhancement are thus identified as the governing noise attenuation mechanisms. Finally, we extend the analysis to provide insights into the effectiveness of over-the-rotor acoustic treatment with shortened axial length.