Spin coating is the process of generating a uniform coating film on a substrate by centrifugal forces during rotation. In the framework of lubrication theory, we investigate the axisymmetric film evolution and contact-line dynamics in spin coating on a partially wetting substrate. The contact-line singularity is regularized by imposing a Navier slip model. The interface morphology and the contact-line movement are obtained by numerical solution and asymptotic analysis of the lubrication equation. The results show that the evolution of the liquid film can be classified into two modes, depending on the rotational speed. At lower speeds, the film eventually reaches an equilibrium state, and we provide a theoretical description of how the equilibrium state can be approached through matched asymptotic expansions. At higher speeds, the film exhibits two or three distinct regions: a uniform thinning film in the central region, an annular ridge near the contact line, and a possible Landau–Levich–Derjaguin-type (LLD-type) film in between that has not been reported previously. In particular, the LLD-type film occurs only at speeds slightly higher than the critical value for the existence of the equilibrium state, and leads to the decoupling of the uniform film and the ridge. It is found that the evolution of the ridge can be well described by a two-dimensional quasi-steady analysis. As a result, the ridge volume approaches a constant and cannot be neglected to predict the variation of the contact-line radius. The long-time behaviours of the film thickness and the contact radius agree with derived asymptotic solutions.

The interaction between planar incident shocks and cylindrical boundary layers is prevalent in missiles equipped with inverted inlets, which typically leads to substantial three-dimensional flow separation and the formation of vortical flow. This study utilizes wind-tunnel experiments and theoretical analysis to elucidate the shock structure, surface topology and pressure distributions induced by a planar shock with finite width impinging on a cylinder wall at Mach 2.0. In the central region, a refraction phenomenon occurs as the transmitted shock bends within the boundary layer, generating a series of compression waves that coalesce into a shock, forming a ‘shock triangle’ structure. As the incident shock propagates backward along both sides, it gradually evolves into a Mach stem, where the transmitted shock refracts the expansion wave. The incident shock interacts with the boundary layer, resulting in the formation of a highly swept separation region that yields a pair of counter-rotating horseshoe-like vortices above the separation lines. These vortices facilitate the accumulation of low-energy fluid on both sides. Although the interaction of the symmetry plane aligns with free-interaction-theory, the separation shock angle away from the centre significantly deviates from the predicted value owing to the accumulation of low-energy fluids. The primary separation line and pressure distribution jointly exhibit an elliptical similarity on the cylindrical surface. Furthermore, the potential unsteady behaviour is assessed, and the Strouhal number of the low-frequency oscillation is found to be 0.0094, which is insufficient to trigger significant alterations in the flow field structure.

We report results from a replication of Solnick (Econ Inq 39(2):189, 2001), which finds using an ultimatum game that, in relation to males, more is demanded from female proposers and less is offered to female responders. We conduct Solnick’s (2001) game using participants from a large US university and a large Chinese university. We find little evidence of gender differences across proposer and responder decisions in both locations.

A high-energy pulsed vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) solid-state laser at 177 nm with high peak power by the sixth harmonic of a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) amplifier in a KBe2BO3F2 prism-coupled device was demonstrated. The ultraviolet (UV) pump laser is a 352 ps pulsed, spatial top-hat super-Gaussian beam at 355 nm. A high energy of a 7.12 mJ VUV laser at 177 nm is obtained with a pulse width of 255 ps, indicating a peak power of 28 MW, and the conversion efficiency is 9.42% from 355 to 177 nm. The measured results fitted well with the theoretical prediction. It is the highest pulse energy and highest peak power ever reported in the VUV range for any solid-state lasers. The high-energy, high-peak-power, and high-spatial-uniformity VUV laser is of great interest for ultra-fine machining and particle-size measurements using UV in-line Fraunhofer holography diagnostics.

We present a practical verification method for safety analysis of the autonomous driving system (ADS). The main idea is to build a surrogate model that quantitatively depicts the behavior of an ADS in the specified traffic scenario. The safety properties proved in the resulting surrogate model apply to the original ADS with a probabilistic guarantee. Given the complexity of a traffic scenario in autonomous driving, our approach further partitions the parameter space of a traffic scenario for the ADS into safe sub-spaces with varying levels of guarantees and unsafe sub-spaces with confirmed counter-examples. Innovatively, the partitioning is based on a branching algorithm that features explainable AI methods. We demonstrate the utility of the proposed approach by evaluating safety properties on the state-of-the-art ADS Interfuser, with a variety of simulated traffic scenarios, and we show that our approach and existing ADS testing work complement each other. We certify five safe scenarios from the verification results and find out three sneaky behavior discrepancies in Interfuser which can hardly be detected by safety testing approaches.

EXOSC10 is an exosome-associated ribonuclease that degrades and processes a wide range of transcripts in the nucleus. The initial segment (IS) of the epididymis is crucial for sperm transport and maturation in mice by affecting the absorption and secretion that is required for male fertility. However, the role of EXOSC10 ribonuclease-mediated RNA metabolism within the IS in the regulation of gene expression and sperm maturation remains unknown. Herein, we established an Exosc10 conditional knockout (Exosc10 cKO) mouse model by crossing Exosc10F/F mice with Lcn9-Cre mice which expressed recombinase in the principal cells of IS as early as post-natal day 17. Morphological and histological analyses revealed that Exosc10 cKO males had normal spermatogenesis and development of IS. Moreover, the sperm concentration, morphology, motility, and frequency of acrosome reactions in the cauda epididymides of Exosc10 cKO mice were comparable with those of control mice. Thus, Exosc10 cKO males had normal fertility. Collectively, our genetic mouse model and findings demonstrate that loss of EXOSC10 in the IS of epididymis is dispensable for sperm maturation and male fertility.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of low-carbohydrate diet, balanced dietary guidance and pharmacotherapy on weight loss among individuals with overweight or obesity over a period of 3 months. The study involves 339 individuals with overweight or obesity and received weight loss treatment at the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2023. The primary outcome is the percentage weight loss. Among the studied patients, the majority chose low-carbohydrate diet as their primary treatment (168 (49·56 %)), followed by balanced dietary guidance (139 (41·00 %)) and pharmacotherapy (32 (9·44 %)). The total percentage weight loss for patients who were followed up for 1 month, 2 months and 3 months was 4·98 (3·04, 6·29) %, 7·93 (5·42, 7·93) % and 10·71 (7·74, 13·83) %, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression analysis identified low-carbohydrate diet as an independent factor associated with percentage weight loss of ≥ 3 % and ≥ 5 % at 1 month (OR = 0·461, P < 0·05; OR = 0·349, P < 0·001). The results showed that a low-carbohydrate diet was an effective weight loss strategy in the short term. However, its long-term effects were comparable to those observed with balanced dietary guidance and pharmacotherapy.

The flexible flat cable (FFC) assembly task is a prime challenge in electronic manufacturing. Its characteristics of being prone to deformation under external force, tiny assembly tolerance, and fragility impede the application of robotic assembly in this field. To achieve reliable and stable robotic automation assembly of FFC, an efficient assembly skill acquisition strategy is presented by combining a parallel robot skill learning algorithm with adaptive impedance control. The parallel robot skill learning algorithm is proposed to enhance the efficiency of FFC assembly skill acquisition, which reduces the risk of damaging FFC and tackles the uncertain influence resulting from deformation during the assembly process. Moreover, FFC assembly is also a complex contact-rich manipulation task. An adaptive impedance controller is designed to implement force tracking during the assembly process without precise environment information, and the stability is also analyzed based on the Lyapunov function. Experiments of FFC assembly are conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is robust and efficient.

Toroidal bubbles (TBs) represent cases of vortex rings with a gas–liquid interface where a gas vortex ring is encased within a liquid vortex ring, and can serve as effective media for mass conveyance, process mixing, noise reduction and reaction regulation. In this study, we carry out a systematic study on the interaction between a TB and a free surface. According to the high-speed photographic images from the experiments, we identify strong and weak interactions in terms of the normalized maximum free surface deformation $h_{max}^*$. Then, we perform numerical simulations based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method in the OpenFOAM platform. Based on both the experimental and the numerical results, we conclude that the Froude number, $Fr$, determines the main characteristics during the interaction process. The TB–free surface interaction is essentially the interaction between the liquid vortex ring enveloping the TB and the free surface, supplemented by the TB's complex behaviour. Next, we establish the scaling law of $h_{max}^*$ based on the energy balance condition. Based on this, we provide the critical $Fr$ and the slenderness of the TB, $\eta$, for identifying the strong and weak interactions, and a parametric plot of the interactions in terms of $Fr$ and $\eta$.

This study aimed to understand the potassium voltage-gated channel KQT-like subfamily, member 1 gene polymorphism in a rural elderly population in a county in Guangxi and to explore the possible relationship between its gene polymorphism and blood sugar. The 6 SNP loci of blood DNA samples from 4355 individuals were typed using the imLDRTM Multiple SNP Typing Kit from Shanghai Tianhao Biotechnology Co. The data combining epidemiological information (baseline questionnaire and physical examination results) and genotyping results were statistically analyzed using GMDR0.9 software and SPSS22.0 software. A total of 4355 elderly people aged 60 years and above were surveyed in this survey, and the total abnormal rate of glucose metabolism was 16·11 % (699/4355). Among them, male:female ratio was 1:1·48; the age group of 60–69 years old accounted for the highest proportion, with 2337 people, accounting for 53·66 % (2337/4355). The results of multivariate analysis showed that usually not doing farm work (OR 1·26; 95 % CI 1·06, 1·50), TAG ≥ 1·70 mmol/l (OR 1·19; 95 % CI 1·11, 1·27), hyperuricaemia (OR 1·034; 95 % CI 1·01, 1·66) and BMI ≥ 24 kg/m2 (OR 1·06; 95 % CI 1·03, 1·09) may be risk factors for abnormal glucose metabolism. Among all participants, rs151290 locus AA genotype, A allele carriers (AA+AC) were 0.70 times more likely (0.54 to 0.91) and 0.82 times more likely (0.70 to 0.97) to develop abnormal glucose metabolism than CC genotype carriers, respectively. Carriers of the T allele at the rs2237892 locus (CT+TT) were 0.85 times more likely to have abnormal glucose metabolism than carriers of the CC genotype (0.72 to 0.99); rs2237897 locus CT gene. The possibility of abnormal glucose metabolism in the carriers of CC genotype, TT genotype and T allele (CT + TT) is 0·79 times (0·67–0·94), 0·74 times (0·55–0·99) and 0·78 times (0·66, 0·92). The results of multifactor dimensionality reduction showed that the optimal interaction model was a three-factor model consisting of farm work, TAG and rs2237897. The best model dendrogram found that the interaction between TAG and rs2237897 had the strongest effect on fasting blood glucose in the elderly in rural areas, and they were mutually antagonistic. Environment–gene interaction is an important factor affecting abnormal glucose metabolism in the elderly of a county in Hechi City, Guangxi.

The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) and the little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata) are among the top 100 invasive alien species globally, causing significant ecological and economic harm. Therefore, it is crucial to study their potential geographic distribution worldwide. This study aimed to predict their global distribution under current and future climate conditions. We used distribution data from various sources, including CABI, GBIF, and PIAKey, and key climate variables selected from 19 environmental factors to model their potential geographic distribution using MaxEnt. The AUC values were 0.925 and 0.937 for L. humile and W. auropunctata, respectively, indicating good predictive performance. Suitable areas for L. humile were mainly in southern North America, northern South America, Europe, central Asia, southern Oceania, and parts of Africa, while W. auropunctata suitable areas were mostly in southern North America, most of South America, a small part of Europe, southern Asia, central Africa, and some parts of Oceania. Under climate change scenario, suitable areas for L. humile increased, while highly suitable areas for W. auropunctata decreased. The top four countries with the largest areas of overlapping suitable habitat under current climate were Brazil, China, Australia, and Argentina, while under future SSP585 climate scenario, the top four countries were Brazil, China, Indonesia, and Argentina. Some countries, such as Estonia and Finland, will see an overlapping adaptation area under climate change. In conclusion, this study provides insight into controlling the spread and harm of L. humile and W. auropunctata.

This paper retrospectively analysed the prevalence of macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MRMP) in some parts of China. Between January 2013 and December 2019, we collected 4,145 respiratory samples, including pharyngeal swabs and alveolar lavage fluid. The highest PCR-positive rate of M. pneumoniae was 74.5% in Beijing, the highest resistance rate was 100% in Shanghai, and Gansu was the lowest with 20%. The highest PCR-positive rate of M. pneumoniae was 74.5% in 2013, and the highest MRMP was 97.4% in 2019; the PCR-positive rate of M. pneumoniae for adults in Beijing was 17.9% and the MRMP was 10.48%. Among the children diagnosed with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), the PCR-positive and macrolide-resistant rates of M. pneumoniae were both higher in the severe ones. A2063G in domain V of 23S rRNA was the major macrolide-resistant mutation, accounting for more than 90%. The MIC values of all MRMP to erythromycin and azithromycin were ≥ 64 μg/ml, and the MICs of tetracycline and levofloxacin were ≤ 0.5 μg/ml and ≤ 1 μg/ml, respectively. The macrolide resistance varied in different regions and years. Among inpatients, the macrolide-resistant rate was higher in severe pneumonia. A2063G was the common mutation, and we found no resistance to tetracycline and levofloxacin.

Examination of plant microfossils (phytoliths and starch granules) preserved in dental calculus allows for the direct identification of some components of prehistoric diets. In this article, the authors present the results of microfossil analysis of dental calculus from wild and domestic animals at the Late Neolithic site of Kangjia in the Central Plains, an area critical in the emergence of early Chinese states. Consumption of cooked plant foods by domestic pigs and dogs, and of domestic crops by wild animals, at this site hints, the authors argue, at an interdependent relationship between animal management, agricultural production and ritual practices that contributed to the political transformations of Late Neolithic China.