This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum folate levels and the risk of psoriasis by integrating observational study with Mendelian Randomisation (MR) analysis. We firstly conducted an observational study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Subsequently, genetic instruments were selected for two-sample MR analyses to investigate the causal relationship between serum folate levels and the risk of psoriasis. The observational study showed no significant association between serum folate levels and psoriasis. In the fully adjusted model, neither serum folate level as a continuous variable (OR = 0·99, 95 % CI: 0·98, 1·00, P = 0·071) nor serum folate quartiles Q4 compared to Q1 (OR = 0·83, 95 % CI: 0·58, 1·19, P = 0·309) showed statistical significance. The MR analysis revealed that higher genetically predicted serum folate levels from Icelandic and Danish populations were significantly associated with a reduced risk of psoriasis (OR = 0·63, 95 % CI: 0·45, 0·88, P = 0·005). Similarly, higher genetically predicted serum folate levels from South Asian populations were significantly associated with a lower risk of psoriasis (OR = 0·84, 95 % CI: 0·72, 0·98, P = 0·025). Integrating observational study with MR analysis suggests that serum folate levels are protective factors against psoriasis, indicating that higher serum folate levels may help prevent the onset of the disease.

The double-cone ignition scheme is a promising novel ignition method, which is expected to greatly save the driver energy and enhance the robustness of the implosion process. In this paper, ablation of the inner surface of the cone by the hard X-ray from coronal Au plasma is studied via radiation hydrodynamics simulations. It is found that the X-ray ablation of the inner wall will form strong pre-plasma, which will significantly affect the implosion process and cause the Au plasma to mix with the fuel, leading to ignition failure. The radiation and pre-ablation intensities in the system are estimated, and the evolutions of areal density, ion temperature and the distribution of Au ions are analysed. In addition, the mixing of Au in CH at collision is quantified. Then, a scheme to reduce the X-ray pre-ablation by replacing the gold cone with a tungsten cone is proposed, showing that it is effective in reducing high-Z mixing and improving collision results.

Double-cone ignition [Zhang et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 378, 20200015 (2020)] was proposed recently as a novel path for direct-drive inertial confinement fusion using high-power lasers. In this scheme, plasma jets with both high density and high velocity are required for collisions. Here we report preliminary experimental results obtained at the Shenguang-II upgrade laser facility, employing a CHCl shell in a gold cone irradiated with a two-ramp laser pulse. The CHCl shell was pre-compressed by the first laser ramp to a density of 3.75 g/cm3 along the isentropic path. Subsequently, the target was further compressed and accelerated by the second laser ramp in the cone. According to the simulations, the plasma jet reached a density of up to 15 g/cm3, while measurements indicated a velocity of 126.8 ± 17.1 km/s. The good agreements between experimental data and simulations are documented.

The Righi–Leduc heat flux generated by the self-generated magnetic field in the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability driven by a laser irradiating thin targets is studied through two-dimensional extended-magnetohydrodynamic simulations. The perturbation structure gets into a low magnetization state though the peak strength of the self-generated magnetic field could reach hundreds of teslas. The Righi–Leduc effect plays an essential impact both in the linear and nonlinear stages, and it deflects the total heat flux towards the spike base. Compared to the case without the self-generated magnetic field included, less heat flux is concentrated at the spike tip, finally mitigating the ablative stabilization and leading to an increase in the velocity of the spike tip. It is shown that the linear growth rate is increased by about 10% and the amplitude during the nonlinear stage is increased by even more than 10% due to the feedback of the magnetic field, respectively. Our results reveal the importance of Righi–Leduc heat flux to the growth of the instability and promote deep understanding of the instability evolution together with the self-generated magnetic field, especially during the acceleration stage in inertial confinement fusion.

Although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have produced remarkable responses in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, receivers still have a relatively low response rate. Initial response assessment by conventional imaging and evaluation criteria is often unable to identify whether patients can achieve durable clinical benefit from ICIs. Overall, there are sparse effective biomarkers identified to screen NSCLC patients responding to this therapy. A lot of studies have reported that patients with specific gene mutations may benefit from or resist to immunotherapy. However, the single gene mutation may be not effective enough to predict the benefit from immunotherapy for patients. With the advancement in sequencing technology, further studies indicate that many mutations often co-occur and suggest a drastic transformation of tumour microenvironment phenotype. Moreover, co-mutation events have been reported to synergise to activate or suppress signalling pathways of anti-tumour immune response, which also indicates a potential target for combining intervention. Thus, the different mutation profile (especially co-mutation) of patients may be an important concern for predicting or promoting the efficacy of ICIs. However, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge of this field until now. Therefore, in this study, we reviewed and elaborated the value of cancer mutation profile in predicting the efficacy of immunotherapy and analysed the underlying mechanisms, to provide an alternative way for screening dominant groups, and thereby, optimising individualised therapy for NSCLC patients.

Sarcopenia is a core contributor to several health consequences, including falls, fractures, physical limitations and disability. The pathophysiological processes of sarcopenia may be counteracted with the proper diet, delaying sarcopenia onset. Dietary pattern analysis is a whole diet approach used to investigate the relationship between diet and sarcopenia. Here, we aimed to investigate this relationship in an elderly Chinese population. A cross-sectional study with 2423 participants aged more than 60 years was performed. Sarcopenia was defined based on the guidelines of the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia, composed of low muscle mass plus low grip strength and/or low gait speed. Dietary data were collected using a FFQ that included questions on 100 food items along with their specified serving sizes. Three dietary patterns were derived by factor analysis: sweet pattern, vegetable pattern and animal food pattern. The prevalence of sarcopenia was 16·1 %. The higher vegetable pattern score and animal food pattern score were related to lower prevalence of sarcopenia (Ptrend = 0·006 and < 0·001, respectively); the multivariate-adjusted OR of the prevalence of sarcopenia in the highest v. lowest quartiles were 0·54 (95 % CI 0·34, 0·86) and 0·50 (95 % CI 0·33, 0·74), separately. The sweet pattern score was not significantly related to the prevalence of sarcopenia. The present study showed that vegetable pattern and animal food pattern were related to a lower prevalence of sarcopenia in Chinese older adults. Further studies are required to clarify these findings.

A gravity-driven water film falling down an ice sheet is considered within the framework of a long-wave approximation. The integral-boundary-layer method, modified with the account of the phase transition, is adopted to describe the evolution of both the free surface of a water film and the interface between the ice and water. A set of governing equations consisting of five coupled nonlinear partial differential equations is established. The linear instability analysis of the uniform base flow is performed, and the result is in good agreement with the Orr–Sommerfeld analysis of the linearized Navier–Stokes equations. The phase transition at the interface between the ice and water plays a role in stabilizing the system linearly with long-wavelength perturbations. The nonlinear solutions of the steady travelling waves are constructed numerically. The phase transition tends to suppress the dispersion of the interfacial wave. Comparisons to direct numerical simulation of the Navier–Stokes equations, which are performed with an extended marker and cell method, show a remarkable agreement. The integral-boundary-layer method captures the water film thickness and the topography of the ice sheet satisfactorily. The phase transition is observed to enhance the backflow phenomenon in the capillary region of the solitary-like interfacial wave.

The core toroidal plasma intrinsic rotation has been studied by experiments and simulations in the Joint Texas Experimental Tokamak (J-TEXT). The direction of core intrinsic rotation in the J-TEXT plasma is counter-current. As the plasma density ramps up, the rotation velocity increases in the counter-current direction. By comparing four different electron densities, linear local gyrokinetic simulations have been performed by the Gyrokinetic Electromagnetic Numerical Experiment code for the first time on J-TEXT. It is found that the most dominant turbulence is the ion temperature gradient at $0.2a$, where $a$ is the minor radius of the plasma and this is unchanged during the plasma density ramp up. By scanning the radial wave vectors, it is found that the residual stress term reverses from negative to positive when the plasma density exceeds a certain threshold. The pinch term is larger than the residual stress term at all four electron densities, which means that the pinch term is always dominant in the core of a J-TEXT plasma.

Transmission of varicella occurs frequently in schools and households. We investigated the characteristics of varicella cases derived from within-household transmission and the modes of varicella transmission between school and household settings in Shanghai, China, from 2009 to 2018. Within-household transmission occurred in 278 households, of which 134 transmission events were between children. Sixty-one household varicella transmission events may be attributed to isolation procedures for infected students during school outbreaks, and 7.6% of school outbreaks were caused by schoolchildren cases derived from within-household transmission. The frequency of ‘school-household-school’ transmission adds an additional layer of complexity to the control of school varicella outbreaks. Administration of varicella vaccine as post-exposure prophylaxis after exposure is considered to be an effective measure to control varicella spread within households and schools.

Living Caprini are dominant bovids in the pan-Tibetan area that are strongly adapted to dry steppe and high-mountain meadow habitats. Some taxa with Holarctic distributions, e.g., Ovis Linnaeus, 1758, were thought to originate on the Tibetan Plateau and subsequently dispersed elsewhere, which was depicted as an ‘out of Tibet’ story. However, except for some information on a stem caprine assemblage from the Qaidam Basin, the early evolution of Caprini around the Tibetan Plateau is poorly known. Here, we report new material of Olonbulukia tsaidamensis Bohlin, 1937, which was a member of this stem caprine assemblage, from the Wuzhong region, northern China, confirming the similarity of the Wuzhong Fauna and ‘Qaidam Fauna.’ Based on a biometric study of horncores from the ‘Qaidam’ and Wuzhong faunas, we recognize six taxa from this stem caprine assemblage: O. tsaidamensis, O. sp., Qurliqnoria cheni Bohlin, 1937, Tossunnoria pseudibex Bohlin, 1937, ?Protoryx cf. P. enanus Köhler, 1987, and cf. Pachytragus sp. Among these taxa, Q. cheni and T. pseudibex are probably related to some extant Tibetan endemic species, e.g., the Tibetan antelope, Pantholops hodgsonii (Abel, 1826), and the Himalayan tahr, Hemitragus jemlahicus (Smith, 1826). Others might be ancestral to the Turolian caprine assemblages and even possibly gave rise to the extant Caprina. This work reveals an early radiation of stem caprines along the northern side of the rising Tibetan Plateau and indicates a mixed pattern of pan-Tibetan stem caprine evolution prior to their dispersal out of the Tibetan Plateau.

Babesiosis is an emerging tick-transmitted zoonosis prevalent in large parts of the world. This study was designed to determine the rates of Babesia microti infection among small rodents in Yunnan province, where human cases of babesiosis have been reported. Currently, distribution of Babesia in its endemic regions is largely unknown. In this study, we cataloged 1672 small wild rodents, comprising 4 orders, from nine areas in western Yunnan province between 2009 and 2011. Babesia microti DNA was detected by polymerase chain reaction in 4·3% (72/1672) of the rodents analyzed. The most frequently infected rodent species included Apodemus chevrieri and Niviventer fulvescens. Rodents from forests and shrublands had significantly higher Babesia infection rates. Genetic comparisons revealed that Babesia was most similar to the Kobe- and Otsu-type strains identified in Japan. A variety of rodent species might be involved in the enzootic maintenance and transmission of B. microti, supporting the need for further serological investigations in humans.

In this paper, we introduce the anisotropic Sobolev capacity with fractional order and develop some basic properties for this new object. Applications to the theory of anisotropic fractional Sobolev spaces are provided. In particular, we give geometric characterizations for a nonnegative Radon measure $\mu $ that naturally induces an embedding of the anisotropic fractional Sobolev class $\dot{\Lambda }_{\alpha ,K}^{1,1}$ into the $\mu $-based-Lebesgue-space $L_{\mu }^{n/\beta }\,\text{with}\,0<\beta \le n$. Also, we investigate the anisotropic fractional $\alpha $-perimeter. Such a geometric quantity can be used to approximate the anisotropic Sobolev capacity with fractional order. Estimation on the constant in the related Minkowski inequality, which is asymptotically optimal as $\alpha \to {{0}^{+}}$, will be provided.

In the paper we study relations of rigidity, equicontinuity and pointwise recurrence between an invertible topological dynamical system (t.d.s.) $(X,T)$ and the t.d.s. $(K(X),T_{K})$ induced on the hyperspace $K(X)$ of all compact subsets of $X$, and provide some characterizations. Among other examples, we construct a minimal, non-equicontinuous, distal and uniformly rigid t.d.s. and a weakly mixing t.d.s. which induces dense periodic points on the hyperspace $K(X)$ but itself does not have dense distal points, solving in that way a few open questions from earlier articles by Dong, and Li, Yan and Ye.

The effect of electropulsing assisted ultrasonic surface modification (EUSM) on microstructure and surface properties of S50C steel welded components is investigated. Compared with conventional ultrasonic surface modification (USM) process, EUSM process achieves significant improvements in microstructure, including deeper strengthened layers and gradient microstructure on the surface. The EUSM-induced microstructure results in higher levels of surface compressive residual stress and greater surface microhardness and its effective depth. Conventional USM process is inevitably accompanied by some plastic damages, such as pit and crack defects. The damages, however, can be eliminated to some extent during the EUSM process. These enhancements may be attributed to the thermal and athermal effects caused by electropulsing treatment, which accelerates the mobility of dislocations in the dynamic recrystallization process.

The late Palaeoproterozoic to early Mesoproterozoic igneous rocks of southwestern China are characterized by a number of mafic intrusions and dykes. However, the origin and tectonic implications of these mafic intrusions and dykes remain unclear. The Hekou mafic intrusion, intruding into the Hekou Group in the Hekou area, SW China, is the biggest and most representative one. The intrusion is mainly composed of coarse-grained in the central zone (CZ) and medium- to fine-grained gabbroic rocks in the outer zone (OZ). Cameca secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) U–Pb zircon ages, and geochemical and Nd isotopic results for the intrusion are reported in this paper. SIMS U–Pb zircon ages indicate that the gabbroic rocks from the CZ and OZ were emplaced at 1735±6.5 Ma and 1736±4.0 Ma, respectively. This suggests that the Hekou intrusion originated from c. 1.7 Ga mafic magmatism in the southwestern Yangtze Block. The coarse-grained rocks in the CZ of the intrusion show fairly homogeneous major- and trace-element compositions. In contrast, the medium- to fine-grained rocks from the OZ display slightly evolved compositions, with relatively lower Mg nos, MgO, Al2O3, Cr and Ni contents, and higher SiO2, CaO and Zr concentrations than those of the rocks from the CZ. Although the gabbroic rocks of the intrusion have low total rare earth element (REE) contents (REE = 29.3–40.2 ppm) with slightly light REE (LREE)-enriched and heavy REE (HREE)-depleted patterns, they exhibit distinct trace-element and Nd isotopic features. The rocks from the CZ are characterized by slightly LREE-enriched and ‘convex upwards’ incompatible trace-element patterns with significant Th depletion and insignificant Nb and Ta depletion relative to La. However, the rocks from the OZ have relatively flatter REE patterns than those of the rocks from the CZ. In addition, the rocks from the OZ are slightly enriched in Th and depleted in Nb and Ta relative to La. The εNd(T) values of the CZ and the OZ rocks are +0.70 to +2.3 and −0.30 to +0.24, respectively. The parental magma for the Hekou gabbroic intrusion exhibits affinity with a subalkaline basaltic magma, which was possibly generated by relatively high degrees of partial melting of a slightly depleted asthenospheric mantle source. Their geochemical and isotopic variations were due to slight crystal fractionation with varying degrees of crustal contamination. The Hekou intrusion was therefore supposed to form in an anorogenic extensional environment. It is further suggested that c. 1.7 Ga is an important onset timing of widespread anorogenic magmatism in the southwestern Yangtze Block. We interpret the late Palaeoproterozoic gabbroic intrusion to represent anorogenic mafic magmatism, which was most likely related to the break-up of the Columbia supercontinent.

A defect in the intestinal barrier is one of the characteristics of Crohn's disease (CD). The tight junction (TJ) changes and death of epithelial cells caused by intestinal inflammation play an important role in the development of CD. DHA, a long-chain PUFA, has been shown to be helpful in treating inflammatory bowel disease in experimental models by inhibiting the NF-κB pathway. The present study aimed at investigating the specific effect of DHA on the intestinal barrier function in IL-10-deficient mice. IL-10-deficient mice (IL-10− / −) at 16 weeks of age with established colitis were treated with DHA (i.g. 35·5 mg/kg per d) for 2 weeks. The severity of their colitis, levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, epithelial gene expression, the distributions of TJ proteins (occludin and zona occludens (ZO)-1), and epithelial apoptosis in the proximal colon were measured at the end of the experiment. DHA treatment attenuated the established colitis and was associated with reduced infiltration of inflammatory cells in the colonic mucosa, lower mean histological scores and decreased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-17, TNF-α and interferon-γ). Moreover, enhanced barrier function was observed in the DHA-treated mice that resulted from attenuated colonic permeability, rescued expression and corrected distributions of occludin and ZO-1. The results of the present study indicate that DHA therapy may ameliorate experimental colitis in IL-10− / − mice by improving the intestinal epithelial barrier function.