This article investigates the internationalization process of incubating, parenting, and eventually spinning-off overseas entrepreneurial ventures originating from emerging markets. In a comparative case study of Chinese high-tech firms, we leveraged multiple sources of data to reveal (1) how the exploitation of parent firms’ technological and platform resources enables them to initiate, support, and eventually profit from the international growth of foreign ventures that autonomously engage in the exploration of product and market innovations, and (2) how ambidextrous synergy was created through the continuous exchange, combination, and reconfiguration of knowledge and resources between parent firms and foreign ventures. These findings extend our understanding of how Chinese high-tech firms manage the learning process in overseas venturing. We draw implications of these findings for research and practice.

Depression is highly prevalent in haemodialysis patients, and diet might play an important role. Therefore, we conducted this cross-sectional study to determine the association between dietary fatty acids (FA) consumption and the prevalence of depression in maintenance haemodialysis (MHD) patients. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated FFQ between December 2021 and January 2022. The daily intake of dietary FA was categorised into three groups, and the lowest tertile was used as the reference category. Depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Logistic regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) models were applied to assess the relationship between dietary FA intake and the prevalence of depression. As a result, after adjustment for potential confounders, a higher intake of total FA [odds ratio (OR)T3 vs. T1 = 1·59, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1·04, 2·46] and saturated fatty acids (SFA) (ORT3 vs. T1 = 1·83, 95 % CI = 1·19, 2·84) was associated with a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms. Significant positive linear trends were also observed (P < 0·05) except for SFA intake. Similarly, the prevalence of depression in MHD patients increased by 20% (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.01–1.43) for each standard deviation increment in SFA intake. RCS analysis indicated an inverse U-shaped correlation between SFA and depression (Pnonlinear > 0·05). Additionally, the sensitivity analysis produced similar results. Furthermore, no statistically significant association was observed in the subgroup analysis with significant interaction. In conclusion, higher total dietary FA and SFA were positively associated with depressive symptoms among MHD patients. These findings inform future research exploring potential mechanism underlying the association between dietary FA and depressive symptoms in MHD patients.

Let $F$ be a non-archimedean local field of characteristic different from 2 and residual characteristic $p$. This paper concerns the $\ell$-modular representations of a connected reductive group $G$ distinguished by a Galois involution, with $\ell$ an odd prime different from $p$. We start by proving a general theorem allowing to lift supercuspidal $\overline {\mathbf {F}}_{\ell }$-representations of $\operatorname {GL}_n(F)$ distinguished by an arbitrary closed subgroup $H$ to a distinguished supercuspidal $\overline {\mathbf {Q}}_{\ell }$-representation. Given a quadratic field extension $E/F$ and an irreducible $\overline {\mathbf {F}}_{\ell }$-representation $\pi$ of $\operatorname {GL}_n(E)$, we verify the Jacquet conjecture in the modular setting that if the Langlands parameter $\phi _\pi$ is irreducible and conjugate-selfdual, then $\pi$ is either $\operatorname {GL}_n(F)$-distinguished or $(\operatorname {GL}_{n}(F),\omega _{E/F})$-distinguished (where $\omega _{E/F}$ is the quadratic character of $F^\times$ associated to the quadratic field extension $E/F$ by the local class field theory), but not both, which extends one result of Sécherre to the case $p=2$. We give another application of our lifting theorem for supercuspidal representations distinguished by a unitary involution, extending one result of Zou to $p=2$. After that, we give a complete classification of the $\operatorname {GL}_2(F)$-distinguished representations of $\operatorname {GL}_2(E)$. Using this classification we discuss a modular version of the Prasad conjecture for $\operatorname {PGL}_2$. We show that the ‘classical’ Prasad conjecture fails in the modular setting. We propose a solution using non-nilpotent Weil–Deligne representations. Finally, we apply the restriction method of Anandavardhanan and Prasad to classify the $\operatorname {SL}_2(F)$-distinguished modular representations of $\operatorname {SL}_2(E)$.

The penultimate deglaciation was characterized by a sub-millennial-scale warm event in the Heinrich Stadial 11(HS11), termed the 134-ka event. However, its precise timing and structure remain poorly constrained due to the lack of high-resolution and precisely dated records. We present an oxygen isotope record of a speleothem with well-developed annual lamina from Zhangjia Cave, located on the north margin of the Sichuan Basin, characterizing Asian summer monsoon (ASM) changes in the 134-ka event, which included an increase excursion of ca. 149 years and decrease excursion of ca. 200 years, inferred from 3.3‰ δ18O variations. This event also divided the weak ASM interval-II (WMI-II), corresponding to HS11, into two stages, the WMI-IIa 132.8–134.1 ka and WMI-IIb 134.4–136.4 ka. With a comparable climatic pattern globally, the 134-ka event is essentially similar to the millennial-scale events in last glacial–deglacial period. Particularly, the observed weak-strong-weak ASM sequence (138.8–132.8 ka) is largely controlled by changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) forced by the meltwater of northern high-latitude ice sheets. Moreover, our results underpin that AMOC, rather than the global ice volume, is more critical to ASM variations during the last two deglaciations.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the clinical characteristics of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) PCR re-positivity after recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Patients (n = 1391) from Guangzhou, China, who had recovered from COVID-19 were recruited between 7 September 2021 and 11 March 2022. Data on epidemiology, symptoms, laboratory test results and treatment were analysed. In this study, 42.7% of recovered patients had re-positive result. Most re-positive patients were asymptomatic, did not have severe comorbidities, and were not contagious. The re-positivity rate was 39%, 46%, 11% and 25% in patients who had received inactivated, mRNA, adenovirus vector and recombinant subunit vaccines, respectively. Seven independent risk factors for testing re-positive were identified, and a predictive model was constructed using these variables. The predictors of re-positivity were COVID-19 vaccination status, previous SARs-CoV-12 infection prior to the most recent episode, renal function, SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgM antibody levels and white blood cell count. The predictive model could benefit the control of the spread of COVID-19.

The fracture toughness of 617 Ni-based weld metal (WM) under different elevated temperatures was tested with a novel method and its fracture mechanism was investigated in this paper. It was found that the fracture toughness of WM was lower than that of base metal (BM) at the same temperature, which was mainly due to the coarse columnar structure, differences in misorientation, and precipitated phases. For both BM and WM, the fracture toughness was lower at elevated temperature due to decreased strength. Much more micro-voids caused by Ti(C, N) and M23C6 inside grains of BM could be observed adjacent to the crack path, which accounted for the dramatically decreased fracture toughness of BM at elevated temperature. In comparison, fewer micro-voids could be observed in WM due to the lack of those second particles. As a result, the J0.2 value and propagation path morphology both showed that the WM had more stable microstructure even though possessing lower toughness.

Tempering cooling rate plays a significant role in the impact toughness of 2CrMoV weld metal. Three different tempering cooling rate experiments were carried out; it is found that the impact toughness of weld metal improved from 44.61 to 117.49 J as the cooling rate increased from 5 to 40 °C/h. Microstructure characterization revealed that the large blocky M–A constituents and cluster precipitation were considered to act as stress concentration sources and cleavage fracture initiators at a cooling rate of 5 °C/h. Under the cooling rate of 20 °C/h, the decrease of blocky M–A constituents as well as homogeneous distribution of precipitation induced the transition from cleavage to interfacial decohesion. The chance of crack propagation in intragranular ferrite matrix was increased, which needed to absorb more energy and improve impact toughness. When the tempering cooling rate reached at 40 °C/h, the cracks mainly propagated in the ferrite matrix; meanwhile, fine and homogeneous distribution of precipitation greatly inhibited crack propagation and led to higher impact toughness.

Monolayer (ML) molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) is a novel 2-dimensional (2D) semiconductor whose properties have many applications in devices. Despite its potential, ML MoS₂ is limited in its use due to its degradation under exposure to ambient air. Therefore, studies of possible degradation prevention methods are important. It is well established that air humidity plays a major role in the degradation. In this paper, we investigate the effects of substrate hydrophobicity on the degradation of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown ML MoS2. We use optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Raman mapping to investigate the degradation of ML MoS2 grown on SiO2 and Si3N4 that are hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates, respectively. Our results show that the degradation of ML MoS₂ on Si3N4 is significantly less than the degradation on SiO2. These results show that using hydrophobic substrates to grow 2D transition metal dichalcogenide ML materials may diminish ambient degradation and enable improved protocols for device manufacturing.

Laser pulses of 200 ps with extremely high intensities and high energies are sufficient to satisfy the demand of shock ignition, which is an alternative path to ignition in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). This paper reports a type of Brillouin scheme to obtain high-intensity 200-ps laser pulses, where the pulse durations are a challenge for conventional pulsed laser amplification systems. In the amplification process, excited Brillouin acoustic waves fulfill the nonlinear optical effect through which the high energy of a long pump pulse is entirely transferred to a 200-ps laser pulse. This method was introduced and achieved within the SG-III prototype system in China. Compared favorably with the intensity of $2~\text{GW}/\text{cm}^{2}$ in existing ICF laser drivers, a 6.96-$\text{GW}/\text{cm}^{2}$ pulse with a width of 170 ps was obtained in our experiment. The practical scalability of the results to larger ICF laser drivers is discussed.

The plerocercoid (sparganum) of Spirometra erinaceieuropaei is the main aetiological agent of human sparganosis. To improve the current knowledge on S. erinaceieuropaei evolution, we performed multi-locus microsatellite typing of sparganum isolates from China for the first time. All available expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences for the Spirometra were downloaded from the GenBank. The identification and localization of microsatellites in ESTs was accomplished by MISA. Based on the selected microsatellites, the genetic structure of 64 sparganum isolates collected from 11 geographical locations in southwest China were investigated through principal component analysis, STRUCTURE analysis and neighbour-joining clustering. A total of 522 non-redundant ESTs containing 915 simple sequence repeats were identified from 12 481 ESTs screened. Five primer pairs were finally selected. Using these loci, a total of 12 alleles were detected in 64 sparganum isolates. Little variability was observed within each of geographical population, especially among isolates derived from Kunming of Yunnan (YN-KM) province. Both STRUCTURE analysis and the clustering analysis supported that two genotypes existed among the sparganum isolates from southwest China. In conclusion, five microsatellite markers were successfully developed, and sparganum population was observed to harbour low genetic variation, further investigation with deeper sampling was needed to elucidate the population structure.

Coarsening mechanism of precipitations was investigated in a weld metal of Alloy 617 during long-term aging at 750 °C, and its effect on impact toughness was clarified distinctly. The needle-like M6C phases at the grain boundary nucleated and coarsened at 2000 h and then presented a stable size with aging to 8000 h. Spherical γ′ phase grew rapidly with the rate of 0.0121 nm/h when aged at 1000 h; then, its ripening rate (RR) reduced to 0.0033 nm/h at 8000 h and stabilized around it. The coarsening of M6C and γ′ was, respectively, controlled by interface diffusion and volume diffusion with the coarsening rate constant of 7.865 × 10−20 m2/s and 1.519 × 10−27 m3/s. Interaction of M6C and γ′ could facilitate their coarsening and cause dramatic decrease in toughness at the early stage. At aging to 8000 h and more, the lower RR of needle-like M6C phases and γ′ phases helped to form stable toughness at a later stage.

In inertial confinement fusion experiments that involve short-laser pulses such as fast ignition (FI), diagnosis of neutrons is usually very challenging because high-intensity γ rays generated by short-laser pulses would mask the much weaker neutron signal. In this paper, fast-response scintillators with low afterglow and gated microchannel plate photomultiplier tubes are combined to build neutron time-of-flight (nTOF) spectrometers for such experiments. Direct-drive implosion experiments of deuterium-gas-filled capsules were performed at the Shenguang-II Upgrade (SG-II-UP) laser facility to study the compressed fuel areal density (〈ρR〉) and evaluate the performance of such nTOF diagnostics. Two newly developed quenched liquid scintillator detectors and a gated ultrafast plastic scintillator detector were used to measure the secondary DT neutrons and primary DD neutrons, respectively. The secondary neutron signals were clearly discriminated from the γ rays from (n, γ) reactions, and the compressed fuel areal density obtained with the yield-ratio method agrees well with the simulations. Additionally, a small scintillator decay tail and a clear DD neutron signal were observed in an integrated FI experiment as a result of the low afterglow of the oxygen-quenched liquid scintillator.

Familial monozygotic (MZ) twinning reports are rare around the world, and we report a four-generation pedigree with seven recorded pairs of female MZ twins. Whole-genome sequencing of seven family members was performed to explore the featured genetic factors in MZ twins. For variations specific to MZ twins, five novel variants were observed in the X chromosome. These candidates were used to explain the seemingly X-linked dominant inheritance pattern, and only one variant was exonic, located at the 5′UTR region of ZCCHC12 (chrX: 117958597, G > A). Besides, consistent mitochondrial DNA composition in the maternal linage precluded roles of mitochondria for this trait. In this pedigree, autosomes also contain diverse variations specific to MZ twins. Pathway analysis revealed a significant enrichment of genes carrying novel SNVs in the epithelial adherens junction-signaling pathway (p = .011), contributed by FGFR1, TUBB6, and MYH7B. Meanwhile, TBC1D22A, TRIOBP, and TUBB6, also carrying similar SNVs, were involved in the GTPase family-mediated signal pathway. Furthermore, gene-set enrichment analysis for 533 genes covered by copy number variations specific to MZ twins illustrated that the tight junction-signaling pathway was significantly enriched (p < .001). Therefore, the novel changes in the X chromosome and the provided candidate variants across autosomes may be responsible for MZ twinning, giving clues to increase our understanding about the underlying mechanism.

We demonstrate an all polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber mode-locked laser seeded, hybrid fiber/solid-slab picosecond pulse laser system which outputs $40~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{J}$, 10 ps pulses at the central wavelength of 1064  nm. The beam quality factors $M^{2}$ in the unstable and stable directions are 1.35 and 1.31, respectively. $15~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{J}$ picosecond pulses at the central wavelength of 355 nm are generated through third harmonic generation (THG) by using two $\text{LiB}_{3}\text{O}_{5}$ (LBO) crystals, in order to get better processing efficiency on polycrystalline diamonds. The high pulse energy and beam quality of these ultraviolet (UV) picosecond pulses are confirmed by latter experiments of material processing on polycrystalline diamonds. This scheme which combines the advantages of the all PM fiber mode-locked laser and the solid-slab amplifier enables compact, robust and chirped pulse amplification-free amplification with high power picosecond pulses.