In order to establish a compact all-optical Thomson scattering source, experimental studies were conducted on the 45 TW Ti: sapphire laser facility. By including a steel wafer, mixed gas, and plasma mirror into a double-exit jet, several mechanisms, such as shock-assisted ionization injection, ionization injection, and driving laser reflection, were integrated into one source. So, the source of complexity was remarkably reduced. Electron bunches with central energy fluctuating from 90 to 160 MeV can be produced. Plasma mirrors were used to reflect the driving laser. The scattering of the reflected laser on the electron bunches led to the generation of X-ray photons. Through comparing the X-ray spots under different experimental conditions, it is confirmed that the X-ray photons are generated by Thomson scattering. For further application, the energy spectra and source size of the Thomson scattering source were measured. The unfolded spectrum contains a large amount of low-energy photons besides a peak near 67 keV. Through importing the electron energy spectrum into the Monte Carlo simulation code, the different contributions of the photons with small and large emitting angles can be used to explain the origin of the unfolded spectrum. The maximum photon energy extended to about 500 keV. The total photon production was 107/pulse. The FWHM source size was about 12 μm.

Increasing evidence shows that maternal hyperglycemia inhibits cardiomyocyte (CM) proliferation and promotes cell apoptosis during fetal heart development, which leads to cardiac dysplasia. Accumulating evidence suggests that the overexpression of miR-21 in CMs has a protective role in cardiac function. Therefore, we investigated whether miR-21 can rescue CM injury caused by high glucose. First, we performed biological function analysis of miR-21-5p overexpression in H9c2 cells treated with high glucose. We found that the proliferation of H9c2 cells treated with high glucose decreased significantly and was rescued after overexpression of miR-21-5p. CCK-8 and EdU incorporation assays were performed to assess cell proliferation. The cell proliferation of the miR-21-5p mimic transfection group was improved compared with that of the NC mimic group (*p < 0.05, miR-21-5p mimics vs. NC mimics) when the proliferation of H9c2 cells was reduced by high glucose (****p < 0.0001, high glucose (HG) vs. normal glucose (NG)). Then, we verified the targeted and negative regulation of miR-21-5p on Rhob using a dual-luciferase activity assay and RT-qPCR, respectively. We further demonstrated that miR-21-5p regulates Rhob to rescue the inhibition of CM proliferation induced by high glucose. The CCK-8 results showed that the cell proliferation of the siRNA-Rhob group was higher than that of the NC mimic group (***p < 0.001) and that of the cotransfection group with Up-Rhob plasmids and miR-21-5p mimics was lower than that of the miR-21-5p mimic group (*p < 0.05). Conclusion: Overexpression of miR-21-5p rescues the inhibition of high glucose-induced CM proliferation through regulation of Rhob.

In this paper, we design and fabricate dual-tunable waveguides in a two-dimensional periodic plate with threaded holes. Dual tunability is realized by using rods held with nuts as well as assembly prestress of the nuts. A straight waveguide, a bent waveguide, and a wave splitter are designed by changing the distribution of rods and nuts in different circuits. The experimental and numerical results show that the frequencies of guided waves can be tuned by the assembly prestress. By increasing the amount of prestress, the frequency range of the passing band can be shifted upward. Confinements, guiding, and splitting of Lamb waves are clearly observed in both experimental measurements and numerical simulations. This work is essential for the practical design of reconfigurable phononic devices.

A single-shot measurement of electron emittance was experimentally accomplished using a focused transfer line with a dipole. The betatron phase of electrons based on laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is energy dependent owing to the coupling of the longitudinal acceleration field and the transverse focusing (defocusing) field in the bubble. The phase space presents slice information after phase compensation relative to the center energy. Fitting the transverse size of the electron beam at different energy slices in the energy spectrum measured 0.27 mm mrad in the experiment. The diagnosis of slice emittance facilitates local electron quality manipulation, which is important for the development of LWFA-based free electron lasers. The quasi-3D particle-in-cell simulations matched the experimental results and analysis well.

The southern Great Xing’an Range (SGXR), located in the eastern segment of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), is one of the most economically important Cu–Mo–Fe–Sn–Pb–Zn–Ag metallogenic provinces in China. The newly discovered Panjiaduan Cu–Pb–Zn deposit (9.3 Mt; at 1.36% Cu, 2.90% Pb, 3.80% Zn and 38.12 g/t Ag), located in the SE segment of the SGXR, is primarily hosted in fracture zones in volcanic rocks and granodiorite of the Manitu Formation. Four paragenetic stages of metallic mineralization are identified: (I) quartz-pyrite-arsenopyrite; (II) quartz-polymetallic sulphide; (III) quartz-galena-sphalerite-argentite; and (IV) quartz-calcite-minor sulphide. The hydrothermal quartz contains three types of primary fluid inclusion (FIs): vapour-rich two-phase liquid-vapour (LV-type), liquid-rich two-phase liquid-vapour (VL-type) and three-phase liquid-vapour-solid FIs (SL-type). Stages I and II contain all types with homogenization temperatures (Th) of 324–386 °C and 276–334 °C as well as salinities of 0.7–38.0 wt% and 0.9–34.7 wt%, respectively, whereas stage III is composed of VL- and LV-type FIs with Th of 210–269 °C and salinities of 0.5–7.2 wt%. Only VL-type FIs occur in stage IV, with Th of 139–185 °C and salinities of 1.6–4.2 wt%. The δ18OH2O and δD values vary from −15.7 to 2.6‰ and −132.7 to −110.2‰, respectively, indicating predominant meteoric water with an initial magmatic source. The He–Ar isotopic compositions of the pyrite inclusions from the Panjiaduan Cu–Pb–Zn veins suggest that fluids were derived from the crust.

Recently, the nature of viscoelastic drag-reducing turbulence (DRT), especially the maximum drag reduction (MDR) state, has become a focus of controversy. It has long been regarded as polymer-modulated inertial turbulence (IT), but is challenged by the newly proposed concept of elasto-inertial turbulence (EIT). This study is to repicture DRT in parallel plane channels by introducing dynamics of EIT through statistical, structural and budget analysis for a series of flow regimes from the onset of drag reduction to EIT. Some underlying mechanistic links between DRT and EIT are revealed. Energy conversion between velocity fluctuations and polymers as well as pressure redistribution effects are of particular concern, based on which a new energy self-sustaining process (SSP) of DRT is repictured. The numerical results indicate that at low Reynolds number ($Re$), weak IT flow is replaced by a laminar regime before the barrier of EIT dynamics is established with the increase of elasticity, whereas, at moderate $Re$, EIT-related SSP can get involved and survive from being relaminarized. This further explains the reason why relaminarization phenomenon is observed for low $Re$ while the flow directly enters MDR and EIT at moderate $Re$. Moreover, with the proposed energy picture, the newly discovered phenomenon that streamwise velocity fluctuations lag behind those in the wall-normal direction can be well explained. The repictured SSP certainly justifies the conjecture that IT nature is gradually replaced by that of EIT in DRT with the increase of elasticity.

The search space of the path planning problem can greatly affect the running time and memory consumption, for example, the concave obstacle in grid-based map usually leads to the invalid search space. In this paper, the filling container algorithm is proposed to alleviate the concave area problem in 2D map space, which is inspired from the scenario of pouring water into a cup. With this method, concave areas can be largely excluded by scanning the map repeatedly. And the effectiveness has been proved in our experiments.

Noble metal (Ag, Au) nanoparticles (NPs) deposited on the surface of three-dimensional (3D) materials are promising 3D surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates. In this work, the authors reported the preparation of 3D wax/silica/Ag(Au) colloidosomes by sulfonic acid group–terminated silica spheres (SiO2–SO3H) combined with a Pickering emulsion technique, as well as seed-mediated growth method of noble metal NPs. The presence of –SO3H group on the silica spheres not only improves significantly the quality of wax/silica colloidosomes (forming perfect silica shell around wax droplet) but also can adsorb metal precursor ions via electrostatic attraction for further growth of metal NPs. The size and coverage of Ag(Au) NPs on wax/silica droplets can be facilely tuned, and relevant wax/silica/Ag(Au) colloidosomes and silica/Ag(Au) Janus particles are obtained via this strategy. The obtained wax/silica/Ag colloidosomes as 3D SERS substrates exhibited excellent SERS enhancement ability and detection limit of 4-aminothiophenol reached 10−9 M.

In this study, we investigate a new simple scheme using a planar undulator (PU) together with a properly dispersed electron beam ($e$ beam) with a large energy spread (${\sim}1\%$) to enhance the free-electron laser (FEL) gain. For a dispersed $e$ beam in a PU, the resonant condition is satisfied for the center electrons, while the frequency detuning increases for the off-center electrons, inhibiting the growth of the radiation. The PU can act as a filter for selecting the electrons near the beam center to achieve the radiation. Although only the center electrons contribute, the radiation can be enhanced significantly owing to the high-peak current of the beam. Theoretical analysis and simulation results indicate that this method can be used for the improvement of the radiation performance, which has great significance for short-wavelength FEL applications.

Shot-peened CM400 maraging steel was used to study the mechanism of enhanced notch fatigue properties of ultra-high strength materials. After shot peening, the specimen surface became rougher, but the transversal machining traces were reduced. The yield strength was slightly improved while the ultimate tensile strength and hardness maintained constant; as a result, the fatigue limit was promoted by about 1.5 times. The nucleated sites of the fatigue fracture were partly changed from the surface to subsurface/interior of the specimen. To further analyze the influencing factors of fatigue properties, the fatigue damage process may be resolved to two aspects: (a) fatigue damage rate affected by shear deformation and (b) fatigue damage tolerance controlled by the dilatation fracture process. Considering the stress state near the notch tip, the hydrostatic stress and maximum shear stress are considered for better understanding these two aspects. It is observed that the fatigue damage tolerance increased while the fatigue damage rate decreased after shot peening. Therefore, the notch fatigue properties of CM400 maraging steels can effectively be improved.

The oxidation behavior of nonstoichiometric Ti2AlC x (x = 0.69) powders synthesized by combustion synthesis was investigated in flowing air by means of simultaneous thermal gravimetric analysis-differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscope/energy dispersive spectroscopy, with an effect of powder size. The oxidation of the fine Ti2AlC powders with the size of about 1 μm starts at 300 °C and completes at 980 °C, while with increasing the powder size around 10 μm the corresponding temperature increases to 400 and 1040 °C, respectively. The oxidation of nonstoichiometric Ti2AlC x (x = 0.69) powders is controlled by surface reaction in 400–600 °C, and mainly diffusion in 600–900 °C, with the corresponding oxidation activation energy of 2.35 eV and 0.12 eV, respectively. In other words, the critical temperature of changing oxidation controlling step is around 600 °C. The oxidation products were mainly rutile-TiO2 and α-Al2O3. The tiny white flocculent particles of α-Al2O3 appeared on the surface of fine Ti2AlC powders and increased with increasing the oxidation temperature.

This article outlines the evolution of a rescue team in responding to adenovirus prevention with a deployable field hospital. The local governments mobilized a shelter hospital and a rescue team consisting of 59 members to assist with rescue and response efforts after an epidemic outbreak of adenovirus. We describe and evaluate the challenges of preparing for deployment, field hospital maintenance, treatment mode, and primary treatment methods. The field hospital established at the rescue scene consisted of a medical command vehicle, a computed tomography shelter, an X-ray shelter, a special laboratory shelter, an oxygen and electricity supply vehicle, and epidemic prevention and protection equipment. The rescue team comprised paramedics, physicians, X-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, and logistical personnel. In 22 days, more than 3000 patients with suspected adenovirus infection underwent initial examinations. All patients were properly treated, and no deaths occurred. After emergency measures were implemented, the spread of adenovirus was eventually controlled. An emergency involving infectious diseases in less-developed regions demands the rapid development of a field facility with specialized medical personnel when local hospital facilities are either unavailable or unusable. An appropriate and detailed prearranged action plan is important for infectious diseases prevention. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:109–114)

Hydroxytyrosol (HT) is a major polyphenolic compound found in olive oil with reported anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities. However, the neuroprotective effect of HT on type 2 diabetes remains unknown. In the present study, db/db mice and SH-SY-5Y neuroblastoma cells were used to evaluate the neuroprotective effects of HT. After 8 weeks of HT administration at doses of 10 and 50 mg/kg, expression levels of the mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes I/II/IV and the activity of complex I were significantly elevated in the brain of db/db mice. Likewise, targets of the antioxidative transcription factor nuclear factor erythroid 2 related factor 2 including p62 (sequestosome-1), haeme oxygenase 1 (HO-1), and superoxide dismutases 1 and 2 increased, and protein oxidation significantly decreased. HT treatment was also found to activate AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), sirtuin 1 and PPARγ coactivator-1α, which constitute an energy-sensing protein network known to regulate mitochondrial function and oxidative stress responses. Meanwhile, neuronal survival indicated by neuron marker expression levels including activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein, N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor and nerve growth factor was significantly improved by HT administration. Additionally, in a high glucose-induced neuronal cell damage model, HT effectively increased mitochondrial complex IV and HO-1 expression through activating AMPK pathway, followed by the prevention of high glucose-induced production of reactive oxygen species and declines of cell viability and VO2 capacity. Our observations suggest that HT improves mitochondrial function and reduces oxidative stress potentially through activation of the AMPK pathway in the brain of db/db mice.