The large number of patients with ankle injuries and the high incidence make ankle rehabilitation an urgent health problem. However, there is a certain degree of difference between the motion of most ankle rehabilitation robots and the actual axis of the human ankle. To achieve more precise ankle joint rehabilitation training, this paper proposes a novel 3-PUU/R parallel ankle rehabilitation mechanism that integrates with the human ankle joint axis. Moreover, it provides comprehensive ankle joint motion necessary for effective rehabilitation. The mechanism has four degrees of freedom (DOFs), enabling plantarflexion/dorsiflexion, eversion/inversion, internal rotation/external rotation, and dorsal extension of the ankle joint. First, based on the DOFs of the human ankle joint and the variation pattern of the joint axes, a 3-PUU/R parallel ankle joint rehabilitation mechanism is designed. Based on the screw theory, the inverse kinematics inverse, complete Jacobian matrix, singular characteristics, and workspace analysis of the mechanism are conducted. Subsequently, the motion performance of the mechanism is analyzed based on the motion/force transmission indices and the constraint indices. Then, the performance of the mechanism is optimized according to human physiological characteristics, with the motion/force transmission ratio and workspace range as optimization objectives. Finally, a physical prototype of the proposed robot was developed, and experimental tests were performed to evaluate the above performance of the proposed robot. This study provides a good prospect for improving the comfort and safety of ankle joint rehabilitation from the perspective of human-machine axis matching.

Mammary gland health plays a key role in maintaining lactation persistency. As a well-known factor involved in physiological processes, the role of oxygen levels in bovine mammary health and lactation persistency remains to be investigated. The present study aimed at investigating the potential regulatory role of hypoxia in the mammary gland of dairy cows with different lactation persistency. Sixty-one Holstein dairy cows were selected for a 180-day experiment at approximately 88 days in milk (DIM). Plasma, milk and mammary tissue samples from 61 cattle were collected on experimental days 0, 90 and 180 (corresponding to 88, 178 and 268 DIM), respectively. Of the 61 cows, 12 cows with high lactation persistency (HP) and 12 with low lactation persistency (LP) were selected for the current study. No difference was observed in milk yield between two groups on d 0 (Pd 0 = 0.67), whereas differences emerged between animals with different lactation persistency at d 105 (Pd 105 = 0.03) until d 180 (Pd 180 < 0.01). The level of mammary apoptosis was significantly higher in the LP group than in the HP cows (Ppersistency < 0.01). In the oxygen-related variables, plasma concentration of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) was higher in the LP cows than in the HP group (Ppersistency < 0.01), especially on d 0 (Pd 0 < 0.01). Compared with HP cows, LP cows had a higher malonaldehyde (Pd 180 = 0.01) and a lower activity of inducible nitric oxide synthase (Pd 180 = 0.01) on d 180, suggesting a possible oxygen alteration between cows with different lactation persistency. RNA-sequencing analysis of the mammary gland on d 0 revealed that HIF-1 associated molecules may play a role in driving mammary gland apoptosis in dairy cows. A lower lactation persistency of dairy cows may be resulted from the altered HIF-1α in the mammary gland.

When studying instability of weakly non-parallel flows, it is often desirable to convert temporal growth rates of unstable modes, which can readily be computed, to physically more relevant spatial growth rates. This has been performed using the well-known Gaster's transformation for primary instability and Herbert's transformation for the secondary instability of a saturated primary mode. The issue of temporal–spatial transformation is revisited in the present paper to clarify/rectify the ambiguity/misunderstanding that appears to exist in the literature. A temporal mode and its spatial counterpart may be related by sharing either the real frequency or wavenumber, and the respective transformations between their growth rates are obtained by a simpler consistent derivation than the original one. These transformations, which consist of first- and second-order versions, are valid under conditions less restrictive than those for Gaster's and Herbert's transformations, and reduce to the latter under additional conditions, which are not always satisfied in practice. The transformations are applied to inviscid Rayleigh instability of a mixing layer and a jet, secondary instability of a streaky flow as well as general detuned secondary instability (including subharmonic and fundamental resonances) of primary Mack modes in a supersonic boundary layer. Comparison of the transformed growth rates with the directly calculated spatial growth rates shows that the transformations derived in this paper outperform Gaster's and Herbert's transformations consistently. The first-order transformation is accurate when the growth rates are small or moderate, while the second-order transformations are sufficiently accurate across the entire instability bands, and thus stand as a useful tool for obtaining spatial instability characteristics via temporal stability analysis.

Blood oxygen is an essential component for numerous biological processes of mammalian animals. Milk production of ruminants largely relies on the supply of nutrients, such as glucose, amino acids and fatty acids. To define the regulatory role of blood oxygen availability in regard to milk production, seventy-five healthy Guanzhong dairy goats with similar body weight, days in milk and parities were selected. For each animal, milk yield was recorded and milk sample was collected to determine compositions. Milk vein blood was collected to determine parameters including blood gas, physio-biochemistry and haematology. Another blood sample was prepared for transcriptome and RT-qPCR. Results showed that both pressure of oxygen (pO2) in the milk vein (positively) and numbers of neutrophils in mammary vein (negatively) were associated with milk yield of the animals. To learn the role of pO2 in blood cell functionality, twelve animals (six with higher yield (H-group) and six with lower yield (L-group)) from seventy-five goats were selected. Compared with animals in L-group, goats in H-group were higher in pO2 but lower in pCO2, lactate, lactate dehydrogenase activity and neutrophil abundance in milk vein, compared with L-group. The blood transcriptome analysis suggested that compared with L-group, animals in H-group were depressed in functionality including neutrophil activation and metabolic pathways including glycolysis, NF-κB and HIF-1. Our result revealed that lower milk production could be associated with neutrophil activation responding to low pO2 in the mammary vein. In the meantime, we highlighted the potential importance of blood oxygen as a milk yield regulator.

Drought is a major concern among abiotic stresses in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production. Breeding resistant cultivars are the most effective means to manage drought stress. F6 recombinant inbred lines (RIL) derived from the cross of Berkut/Worrakatta were used to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for drought tolerance at germination stage under treatment of PEG6000 using the wheat 50 K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array. Twenty-eight linkage groups were constructed, covering a length of 2220.26 cM. Eighteen QTL were detected based on the drought tolerance coefficients and D-value, explaining 2.7–6.5% of the phenotypic variances, in which 15 were likely to be novel. Three QTL, QGR.xjau-5AS, QCL.xjau-5AS and QD.xjau-5AS for GR, CL and D-value, respectively, at physical positions of 11.70–20.61 Mb between markers AX-111258240 and AX-94458300 on chromosome 5AS accounted for 3.4–4.8% of the phenotypic variances. Three QTL, QGP.xjau-5DL, QSH.xjau-5DL and QD.xjau-5DL for GP, SH and D-value, respectively, were flanked by markers AX-94524442 and AX-110998507 at 560.42–567.39 Mb on chromosome 5DL, accounting for 4.4–6.5% of the phenotypic variances. In addition, the candidate genes TraesCS5A02G022100, TraesCS5B02G014200 and TraesCS5D02G563900 were predicted. Based on transcriptional expression data, the results showed that the expression level of TaGATAs-5A, TaUbox-5B and TaGSTP-5D changed with the increase of treatment time under drought stress in tolerant and sensitive varieties. These are interesting targets in mining drought tolerance genes and the improvement of drought tolerance in wheat.

Visual–Inertial Navigation Systems (VINS) plays an important role in many navigation applications. In order to improve the performance of VINS, a new visual/inertial integrated navigation method, named Sliding-Window Factor Graph optimised algorithm with Dynamic prior information (DSWFG), is proposed. To bound computational complexity, the algorithm limits the scale of data operations through sliding windows, and constructs the states to be optimised in the window with factor graph; at the same time, the prior information for sliding windows is set dynamically to maintain interframe constraints and ensure the accuracy of the state estimation after optimisation. First, the dynamic model of vehicle and the observation equation of VINS are introduced. Next, as a contrast, an Invariant Extended Kalman Filter (InEKF) is constructed. Then, the DSWFG algorithm is described in detail. Finally, based on the test data, the comparison experiments of Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), InEKF and DSWFG algorithms in different motion scenes are presented. The results show that the new method can achieve superior accuracy and stability in almost all motion scenes.

Eurasian steppes experienced frequent cultural transfers, human migration, and diffusion of techniques during the Bronze Age. The Hami Oasis is one of the most dynamic areas and has attracted multiple cultural flows. It is an important area that connects various routes of the Tianshan Corridor with the Hexi Corridor in western China. The Tianshanbeilu cemetery is the largest Bronze Age cemetery in Hami. Thirty-seven new radiocarbon dates allowed us to establish a new and more accurate chronology for Tianshanbeilu. Our results showed that the Tianshanbeilu cemetery was used from approximately 2022–1802 cal BC and remained in use from 1093–707 cal BC. This indicates that Tianshanbeilu is the earliest and longest-used known cemetery in eastern Xinjiang. By incorporating the typology of artifacts and stratigraphic relationships, the development of the Tianshanbeilu cemetery was divided into four phases. The first phase was from 2011–1672 cal BC, the second phase was from 1660–1408 cal BC, the third phase was from 1385–1256 cal BC, and the fourth phase was from 1214–1029 cal BC.

This paper investigates streaks and Görtler vortices in a boundary layer over a flat or concave wall in a contracting or expanding stream, which provides a favourable or adverse pressure gradient, respectively. We consider first the excitation of streaks and Görtler vortices by free stream vortical disturbances (FSVD), and their nonlinear evolution. The focus is on FSVD with sufficiently long wavelength, to which the boundary layer is most receptive. The formulation is directed at the general case where the Görtler number $G_{\Lambda }$ (based on the spanwise length scale $\Lambda$ of FSVD) is of order one, and the FSVD is strong enough that the induced vortices acquire an $O(1)$ streamwise velocity in the region where the boundary layer thickness becomes comparable with $\Lambda,$ and the vortices are governed by the nonlinear boundary region equations (NBRE). An important effect of a pressure gradient is that the oncoming FSVD are distorted by the non-uniform inviscid flow outside the boundary layer through convection and stretching. This process is accounted for by using the rapid distortion theory. The impact of the distorting FSVD is analysed to provide the appropriate initial and boundary conditions, which form, along with the NBRE, the appropriate initial boundary value problem describing the excitation and nonlinear evolution of the vortices. Numerical results show that an adverse/favourable pressure gradient cause the Görtler vortices to saturate earlier/later, but at a lower/higher amplitude than that in the case of zero-pressure-gradient. On the other hand, for the same pressure gradient and at low levels of FSVD, the vortices saturate earlier and at a higher amplitude as $G_{\Lambda }$ increases. Raising FSVD intensity reduces the effects of the pressure gradient and curvature. At a high FSVD level of 14 %, the curvature has no impact on the vortices, while the pressure gradient only influences the saturation intensity. The unsteadiness of FSVD is found to reduce the boundary layer response significantly at FSVD levels, but that effect weakens as the turbulence level increases. A secondary instability analysis of the vortices is performed for moderate adverse and favourable pressure gradients. Three families of unstable modes have been identified, which may become dominant depending on the frequency and streamwise location. In the presence of an adverse pressure gradient, the secondary instability occurs earlier, but the unstable modes appear in a smaller band of frequency, and have smaller growth rates. The opposite is true for a favourable pressure gradient. The present theoretical framework, which accounts for the influence of the curvature, turbulence level and pressure gradient, allows for a detailed and integrated description of the key transition processes, and represents a useful step towards predicting the pretransitional flow and transition itself of the boundary layer over a blade in turbomachinery.

Despite the well-characterised mechanisms of amino acids (AA) regulation of milk protein synthesis in mammary glands (MG), the underlying specific AA regulatory machinery in bovine MG remains further elucidated. As methionine (Met) is one of the most important essential and limiting AA for dairy cows, it is crucial to expand how Met exerts its regulatory effects on dairy milk protein synthesis. Our previous work detected the potential regulatory role of seryl-tRNA synthetase (SARS) in essential AA (EAA)-stimulated bovine casein synthesis. Here, we investigated whether and how SARS participates in Met stimulation of casein production in bovine mammary epithelial cells (BMEC). With or without RNA interference against SARS, BMEC were treated with the medium in the absence (containing all other EAA and devoid of Met alone)/presence (containing 0·6 mm of Met in the medium devoid of Met alone) of Met. The protein abundance of β-casein and members of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) pathways was determined by immunoblot assay after 6 h treatment, the cell viability and cell cycle progression were determined by cell counting and propidium iodide-staining assay after 24 h treatment, and protein turnover was determined by l-[ring-3H5]phenylalanine isotope tracing assay after 48 h treatment. In the absence of Met, there was a general reduction in cell viability, total protein synthesis and β-casein production; in contrast, total protein degradation was enhanced. SARS knockdown strengthened these changes. Finally, SARS may work to promote Met-stimulated β-casein synthesis via affecting mTOR and GCN2 routes in BMEC.

This paper introduces a novel 2R1T parallel manipulator redundantly actuated by pneumatic muscles for lower-limb rehabilitation. First, the conceptual design of the proposed 3-DOF parallel mechanism is presented. Then, the inverse kinematics and the generalized Jacobian analysis are carried out. Based on the generalized Jacobian and the constraint characteristics of the mechanism, the force/motion transmissibility of the redundantly actuated parallel mechanism is investigated via four individual cases without actuation redundancy, leading to a suitable local transmission index for the evaluation of kinematic performance of the proposed mechanism. Finally, the design variables are optimized by maximizing the mean value of the local transmission index with the aid of genetic algorithm. The numerical result shows that the proposed parallel mechanism can achieve a good kinematic performance in its task workspace.

The accuracy and fault tolerance of filters are directly affected by the filter architecture and algorithm, thus influencing navigation performance. The chi square detection used in the conventional reset federated filter is not sensitive to soft faults, and it is easy to cause the health subsystem to be polluted through information sharing. It is a challenge to design an adaptive reset federated filter to improve the performance of the navigation system. Therefore, taking the Strapdown Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System/Celestial Navigation System/Synthetic Aperture Radar (SINS/GPS/CNS/SAR) integrated navigation system as an example, an adaptive federated filter architecture for vector-formed information sharing without a fault isolation module is designed in this paper. The proposed method uses the two-state chi square detection algorithm to calculate the parameters corresponding to each state, making the state with higher accuracy obtain a greater information distribution coefficient. In addition, according to the value of vector-formed information sharing, an adaptive coefficient of measurement noise is designed. This improves the adaptability of the navigation system to soft faults. Simulation results show that the accuracy of the proposed algorithm has the same performance compared with the conventional method under normal circumstances. When the sensor has a soft fault, the adaptive federated filter algorithm proposed in this paper can adaptively adjust the distribution coefficients, eliminate the influence of the fault information and improve the precision of the navigation system. The approach described in this paper can be used in multi-sensor integrated navigation. It will have better performance in engineering applications.

The aim of the research reported in this Research Communication was to identify differentially expressed proteins in dairy cows with normal and lutein diet and to elucidate the mechanisms of lutein-induced effects on bovine mammary gland metabolism using a comparative proteomic approach. Thirty-three differentially expressed proteins were identified from mammary gland of control diet-fed and lutein diet-fed dairy cows. Among these proteins, 15 were upregulated and 18 were downregulated in the lutein group. Functional analysis of the differentially expressed proteins showed that increased blood flow, depressed glycolysis, enhanced lactose anabolism, decreased fatty acid oxidation and up-regulated beta lactoglobulin expression were connected with lutein addition. These results suggested that the increased blood flow, reduced glucose catabolism, enhanced capacity for milk lactose synthesis, depressed fatty acid catabolism and increased expression of antioxidantion related protein may be the prime factors contributing to the increased milk production and enhanced immune status in lutein-fed dairy cows. This study provides molecular mechanism of dietary lutein in regulating lactation of dairy cows.

The effect of longitudinal alternating current (LAC) on the growth of the interfacial layers of the copper cladding aluminum (CCA) composite flat bar during isothermal annealing was investigated. The results showed that the application of LAC could remarkably inhibit the growth of interfacial compounds as well as improve the interfacial bonding property of the CCA composite. When the CCA flat bars were annealed at temperatures ranging from 723 to 773 K for 1 h with a LAC density higher than 0.625 A/mm2, the total thickness of the interfacial compound layers was reduced by more than 75% in comparison to CCA flat bars annealed without LAC. The reduction of the thickness of the interfacial layers resulted in an improvement of the bonding strength of the CCA composite. The mechanism of the inhibition effect was that the application of LAC could accelerate the vacancy annihilation in component metals.

Understanding the milk protein expression profile in different buffalo breeds plays an important role in improving hybrid selection and determining the effects on milk protein synthesis. The aim of this research is to compare the differences in milk protein content, composition and distribution between River buffalo and their crossbreeds for hybrid screening. Four groups of milk samples that included Nili-Ravi (N), Murrah (M), a Nili-Ravi-Murrah crossbreed (M-N), and a crossbreed of river buffalo with local swamp buffalo (C) were collected. The protein composition of the buffalo milk was determined by RP-HPLC. A gel-based proteomic approach consisting of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry was utilised for the detailed protein characterisation of milk from different breeds. The results of this analysis showed that the river/swamp buffalo crossbreed (C) displayed the highest content of total protein (4·46%) and κ-casein (11·14%) but the lowest content of α-lactalbumin (6·79%). By selecting 23 different protein spots among the four types of milk that contained the most spots corresponding to κ-casein, β-casein and αs1-casein, correlations between the crossbreeds, protein polymorphism and phosphorylation could be made. The results of this study indicate that crossbreeding a swamp buffalo with a river buffalo has a notable effect on the protein content and composition that may be exploited for producing high-quality raw milk in food technology applications and dairy food production.

The ancient marine limestone beds of the upper part of the Guanling Formation, Panxian County, Guizhou Province, SW China, yielded a wide range of high-diversity well-preserved marine reptiles such as the fully aquatic protorosaur with an extremely long neck Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, the oldest mixosaurid ichthyosaurs and lariosaurs. However, there is no precise isotopic age to study the intriguing origin, evolution and emigration history of the important fauna. We report a sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP) U–Pb zircon age for a volcanic tuff bed within the upper part of the Guanling Formation. The result indicates that the age of the fossil horizon is 244.0±1.3 Ma, 14 Ma earlier than the previously estimated age based on conodont evidence. We consider that the marine reptiles had a relatively rapid evolution during Middle Triassic time, some 8 Ma after the end-Permian mass extinction.