The interaction of helminth infections with type 2 diabetes (T2D) has been a major area of research in the past few years. This paper, therefore, focuses on the systematic review of the effects of helminthic infections on metabolism and immune regulation related to T2D, with mechanisms through which both direct and indirect effects are mediated. Specifically, the possible therapeutic role of helminths in T2D management, probably mediated through the modulation of host metabolic pathways and immune responses, is of special interest. This paper discusses the current possibilities for translating helminth therapy from basic laboratory research to clinical application, as well as existing and future challenges. Although preliminary studies suggest the potential for helminth therapy for T2D patients, their safety and efficacy still need to be confirmed by larger-scale clinical studies.

Dot array deposition through electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing is widely used for high resolution and material utilization advantages. However, the conventional printing method is subject to a printing frequency limit known as the capillary frequency of the meniscus oscillation, where the jet directly contacts the substrate. This makes the printing frequency of EHD printing maintain at a low level and that is difficult to improve. In this work, a method for high-frequency EHD printing through continuous pinch-off is proposed. The characteristic frequency is broken through. A model is established to reveal the printing mechanism by combining the Poisson–Nernst–Planck equation and the phase field method. The unreal charge leakage is prevented by constructing a transition function for the fluid’s properties. The stability of the Taylor cone’s deformation and the droplets’ generation is studied. The measurement criterion for printing frequency is determined. The suitable printing height that can prevent the jet from directly contacting the substrate is obtained by investigating its influence on the printing states and frequency. The phase diagram considering the liquid’s conductivity and viscosity is presented to distinguish whether the printing is based on the end-pinching or Rayleigh–Plateau instability. The influence of the conductivity, viscosity, flow rate and printing voltage on the printing frequencies is studied quantitatively. Finally, scaling laws for printing frequency are proposed by theoretical analyses and summarizing the numerical data. This work could be beneficial for further enhancing the printing frequency of EHD printing.

We study density properties of orbits for a hypercyclic operator T on a separable Banach space X, and show that exactly one of the following four cases holds: (1) every vector in X is asymptotic to zero with density one; (2) generic vectors in X are distributionally irregular of type $1$; (3) generic vectors in X are distributionally irregular of type $2\frac {1}{2}$ and no hypercyclic vector is distributionally irregular of type $1$; (4) every hypercyclic vector in X is divergent to infinity with density one. We also present some examples concerned with weighted backward shifts on $\ell ^p$ to show that all the above four cases can occur. Furthermore, we show that similar results hold for $C_0$-semigroups.

Non-spherical bubble collapses near solid boundaries, generating water hammer pressures and shock waves, were recognized as key mechanisms for cavitation erosion. However, there is no agreement on local erosion patterns, and cavitation erosion damage lacks quantitative analysis. In our experiments, five distinct local erosion patterns were identified on aluminium sample surfaces, resulting from the collapse of laser-induced cavitation bubbles at moderate stand-off distances of $0.4\leqslant \gamma \leqslant 2.2$, namely bipolar, monopolar, annular, solar-halo and central. Among them, the bipolar and monopolar patterns exhibit the most severe cavitation erosion when the toroidal bubbles undergo asymmetrical collapse along the circumferential direction during the second cycle. Shadowgraphy visualization revealed that asymmetrical collapse caused shockwave focusing through head-on collision and oblique superposition of wavefronts. This led to the variations in toroidal bubble radii and the positions of maximum erosion depth not matching at certain stand-off distances. Both initial plasma asymmetry and bubble–wall stand-off distance were critical in determining circumferential asymmetrical collapse behaviours. At large initial aspect ratios, the elliptical jet tips form during the contraction process, resulting in the toroidal bubble collapsing from regions with smaller curvature radii, ultimately converging to the colliding point along the circumferential direction. Our three-dimensional simulations using OpenFOAM successfully reproduce the key features of circumferentially asymmetrical bubble collapse. This study provides new insights into the non-spherical near-wall bubble collapse dynamics and provides a foundation for developing predictive models for cavitation erosion.

Entangled vortex filaments are essential to turbulence, serving as coherent structures that govern nonlinear fluid dynamics and support the reconstruction of fluid fields to reveal statistical properties. This study introduces a quantum implicit representation of vortex filaments in turbulence, employing a levelset method that models the filaments as the intersection of the real and imaginary zero iso-surfaces of a complex scalar field. Describing the fluid field via the scalar field offers distinct advantages in capturing complex structures, topological properties and fluid dynamics, while opening new avenues for innovative solutions through quantum computing platforms. The representation is reformulated into an eigenvalue problem for Hermitian matrices, enabling the conversion of velocity fields into complex scalar fields that embed the vortex filaments. The resulting optimisation is addressed using a variational quantum eigensolver, with Pauli operator truncation and deep learning techniques applied to improve efficiency and reduce noise. The proposed quantum framework achieves a near-linear time complexity and a exponential storage reduction while maintaining a balance of accuracy, robustness and versatility, presenting a promising tool for turbulence analysis, vortex dynamics research, and machine learning dataset generation.

The extracellular matrices, such as the haemolymph, in insects are at the centre of most physiological processes and are protected from oxidative stress by the extracellular antioxidant enzymes. In this study, we identified two secreted superoxide dismutase genes (PxSOD3 and PxSOD5) and investigated the oxidative stress induced by chlorpyrifos (CPF) in the aquatic insect Protohermes xanthodes (Megaloptera: Corydalidae). PxSOD3 and PxSOD5 contain the signal peptides at the N-terminus. Structure analysis revealed that PxSOD3 and PxSOD5 contain the conserved CuZn-SOD domain, which is mainly composed of β-sheets and has conserved copper and zinc binding sites. Both PxSOD3 and PxSOD5 are predicted to be soluble proteins located in the extracellular space. After exposure to different concentrations of sublethal CPF, MDA content in P. xanthodes larvae were increased in a dose-dependent manner; SOD and CAT activities were also higher in CPF-treated groups than that in the no CPF control, indicating that sublethal CPF induces oxidative stress in P. xanthodes larvae. Furthermore, PxSOD3 and PxSOD5 expression levels and haemolymph SOD activity in the larvae were downregulated by sublethal CPF at different concentrations. Our results suggest that the PxSOD3 and PxSOD5 are putative extracellular antioxidant enzymes that may play a role in maintaining the oxidative balance in the extracellular space. Sublethal CPF may induce oxidative stress in the extracellular space of P. xanthodes by reducing the gene expression and catalytic activity of extracellular SODs.

Ultra-thin liquid sheets generated by impinging two liquid jets are crucial high-repetition-rate targets for laser ion acceleration and ultra-fast physics, and serve widely as barrier-free samples for structural biochemistry. The impact of liquid viscosity on sheet thickness should be comprehended fully to exploit its potential. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that viscosity significantly influences thickness distribution, while surface tension primarily governs shape. We propose a thickness model based on momentum exchange and mass transport within the radial flow, which agrees well with the experiments. These results provide deeper insights into the behaviour of liquid sheets and enable accurate thickness control for various applications, including atomization nozzles and laser-driven particle sources.

This study utilises large-eddy simulation with the actuator line model to examine the effects of the tip speed ratio (TSR) on the wake-meandering characteristics of a wind turbine in uniform and turbulent inflows. It is shown that as the TSR grows, the onset position of the wake meandering moves closer to the rotor, and the magnitude of wake oscillation is stronger. This aligns with previous work showing that a higher TSR can accelerate the instability and breakdown of tip vortices. Without a nacelle, the Strouhal number of the wake meandering is found to be independent of the TSR under both the uniform and turbulent inflows. However, with a relatively large nacelle, the Strouhal number first increases and then decreases with TSR. Therefore, the current discovery elucidates the crucial role of the nacelle and clarifies the origin of the TSR dependence of the Strouhal number in wake meandering. In addition, the characteristic frequency of the wake meandering under the turbulent inflow is much smaller than that under the uniform inflow, because of the significant influence of the freestream turbulence. Furthermore, the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and spectral POD (SPOD) methods are employed to study the spatiotemporal characteristics of the meandering wake and its TSR dependence. It is found that the tip and root vortices are the prominent wake structures under the uniform inflow, whereas more complex multiscale structures from the interaction between the freestream turbulence and tip/root vortices exist under the turbulent inflow. Moreover, an amplitude modulation phenomenon of the POD time coefficients at the optimal TSR is observed in the uniform inflow case. Finally, a reduced-order model is constructed for predicting the wake dynamics by combining the SPOD and the ‘sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics’ algorithm with high accuracy and interpretability.

Germplasm resources are the foundation for improving crop varieties and a strategic asset for global food security. They also advance plant breeding, agricultural biotechnology and the production of essential agricultural goods. To assess the distribution, diversity and conservation status of food crop germplasm in the Hainan Province, China, we conducted a detailed survey of the Hainan Island. Between 2017 and 2022, we collected 330 food crop germplasm resources, encompassing 16 cereal crops, including rice, maize, sweet potato. The collected germplasm resources exhibited traits of high resistance to both biotic and abiotic stresses, including common diseases and drought stress, as well as superior quality and adaptability to poor soil conditions such as sandy land. However, challenges such as low productivity and hybrid degradation were identified. These resources were primarily found in Haikou City, Baisha County, Danzhou City, Wuzhishan City and Sanya City. Additionally, we collected several ancient local varieties and endangered germplasm resources such as ‘Jiezi rice’ and ‘Wuzhishan maize’. This study serves as a reference for the conservation, development and utilization of local food crop germplasm resources in Hainan Province and lays the foundation for breeding and developing new varieties.

This paper presents a theoretical model for the electro-osmotic flow (EOF) of semi-dilute polyelectrolyte (PE) solutions in nanochannels. We use mean-field theories to describe the properties of electric double layer and viscosity of PE solutions that are prerequisites for constructing the EOF model. The EOF model is validated via a good match to the existing experimental results. Based on the validated EOF model, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of EOF of semi-dilute PE solutions in nanochannels. First, we observe considerable EOF of PE solutions in the uncharged nanochannels, which is in stark contrast to EOF of simple electrolyte solutions. The analyses show that the EOF of PE solutions in uncharged nanochannels is triggered by the external electric field acting on the near-wall non-electroneutral regions resulting from the confinement-induced inhomogeneous distribution of PE monomers. Although the solutions are electroneutral as a whole, the presence of local non-electroneutral regions and the mismatch between non-electroneutral regions and high-viscosity regions lead to the net EOF in uncharged nanochannels. Furthermore, we reveal that the EOF mobility $\mu _{{eof}}$ in uncharged nanochannels exhibits a scaling law $\mu _{{eof}} \propto a^{-0.44}$ (wherein $a$ denotes monomer Kuhn length) and is inversely proportional to the PE chain length, while it decreases nonlinearly with the charge fraction of the PE chains. Moreover, the EOF mobility reaches its maximum at specific bulk monomer concentration, and increases with the nanochannel height before converging to that under no confinement. Second, we analyse the EOF of PE solutions in nanochannels with various wall effects, such as surface charge density, slip length and adsorption length. When the surface charge is absent, the adsorption length significantly influences the direction and magnitude of the EOF, whereas the slip length has no effect. When the wall becomes increasingly charged, the influence of adsorption length on EOF gradually diminishes, while the importance of the slip length progressively intensifies and the EOF is highly influenced by the co-action of various wall effects in a complicated manner. When the surface wall is oppositely charged to polymer monomers, the EOF mobility varies nonlinearly with the surface charge density, while a zero net flow of EOF followed by a direction reversal is discovered when the wall is likely charged to polymer monomers.

The impinging–freezing of supercooled water droplets (SLDs) is the root cause of aircraft icing. This work presented an experimental investigation of a millimeter-sized supercooled droplet (−10 $^\circ {\rm{C}}$) impact onto cold surfaces. For the majority of the current research on freezing behaviour, the quantitative analysis of impingement contributions was neglected. The present study established prediction models for the frozen area ratio, initial freezing height and solidification time by changing Weber number and Stefan number. The results showed that with the decrease in surface temperatures, the maximum spreading factor and the peak height factor were unchanged; however, the receding velocity of the liquid film reduced. Besides, regardless of the three freezing modes (quasi-static, instantaneous and delayed), the frozen area ratio consistently increased with decreasing Weber number. For the Stefan number exceeded 0.12, the frozen area ratio increased with decreasing surface temperature; otherwise, it was independent of the surface temperature. In addition, the initial height of asymmetrical frozen droplets was characterised using the ‘two-ellipse’ method, revealing an inverse proportionality to the square root of the frozen area ratio. Furthermore, the solidification time of the hemisphere and pancake frozen droplets shortened with the decrease in the initial height and surface temperature. This fundamental study provides valuable insights for understanding aircraft icing and optimising anti-icing systems.

Audiovisual temporal integration ability, reflected by the size of the temporal binding window (TBW), plays an important role in reading. The audiovisual TBW is not fixed, but dynamically changes during the integration process, this is referred to as rapid temporal recalibration. To investigate the rapid audiovisual temporal recalibration ability across age and its correlation with reading, the present study conducted simultaneity judgment (the index includes ΔPSS and ΔTBW) tasks involving speech (Experiment 1; children: Mage = 10.70, adults: Mage = 24.52) and non-speech (Experiment 2; children: Mage = 10.19, adults: Mage = 24.26) audiovisual stimuli in native Mandarin-Chinese-speaking child and adult groups (n = 36 in each group). Results showed that children’s ΔPSS and ΔTBW for speech stimuli were comparable to those of adults. However, when examining trial-by-trial changes in TBW during the integration process, a gap between children and adults was evident. Besides, for non-speech stimuli, children significantly differed from adults in both ΔPSS indicators and the integration process. Moreover, for both children and adults, the correlation and regression analysis showed that the rapid audiovisual temporal recalibration ability of both speech and non-speech stimuli explained reading fluency uniquely after controlling TBW, age, and gender.