To accelerate high-intensity heavy-ion beams to high energy in the booster ring (BRing) at the High-Intensity Heavy-Ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) project, we take the typical reference particle 238U35+, which can be accelerated from an injection energy of 17 MeV/u to the maximal extraction energy of 830 MeV/u, as an example to study the basic processes of longitudinal beam dynamics, including beam capture, acceleration, and bunch merging. The voltage amplitude, the synchronous phase, and the frequency program of the RF system during the operational cycle were given, and the beam properties such as bunch length, momentum spread, longitudinal beam emittance, and beam loss were derived, firstly. Then, the beam properties under different voltage amplitude and synchronous phase errors were also studied, and the results were compared with the cases without any errors. Next, the beam properties with the injection energy fluctuation were also studied. The tolerances of the RF errors and injection energy fluctuation were dictated based on the CISP simulations. Finally, the effect of space charge at the low injection energy with different beam intensities on longitudinal emittance and beam loss was evaluated.

Competition among the two-plasmon decay (TPD) of backscattered light of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), filamentation of the electron-plasma wave (EPW) and forward side SRS is investigated by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Our previous work [K. Q. Pan et al., Nucl. Fusion 58, 096035 (2018)] showed that in a plasma with the density near 1/10 of the critical density, the backscattered light would excite the TPD, which results in suppression of the backward SRS. However, this work further shows that when the laser intensity is so high ($>{10}^{16}$ W/cm2) that the backward SRS cannot be totally suppressed, filamentation of the EPW and forward side SRS will be excited. Then the TPD of the backscattered light only occurs in the early stage and is suppressed in the latter stage. Electron distribution functions further show that trapped-particle-modulation instability should be responsible for filamentation of the EPW. This research can promote the understanding of hot-electron generation and SRS saturation in inertial confinement fusion experiments.

The radio signal transmitted by the Mars Express (MEX) spacecraft was observed regularly between the years 2013–2020 at X-band (8.42 GHz) using the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry (EVN) network and University of Tasmania’s telescopes. We present a method to describe the solar wind parameters by quantifying the effects of plasma on our radio signal. In doing so, we identify all the uncompensated effects on the radio signal and see which coronal processes drive them. From a technical standpoint, quantifying the effect of the plasma on the radio signal helps phase referencing for precision spacecraft tracking. The phase fluctuation of the signal was determined for Mars’ orbit for solar elongation angles from 0 to 180 deg. The calculated phase residuals allow determination of the phase power spectrum. The total electron content of the solar plasma along the line of sight is calculated by removing effects from mechanical and ionospheric noises. The spectral index was determined as $-2.43 \pm 0.11$ which is in agreement with Kolmogorov’s turbulence. The theoretical models are consistent with observations at lower solar elongations however at higher solar elongation ($>$160 deg) we see the observed values to be higher. This can be caused when the uplink and downlink signals are positively correlated as a result of passing through identical plasma sheets.

Frequent freezing injury greatly influences winter wheat production; thus, effective prevention and a command of agricultural production are vital. The freezing injury monitoring method integrated with ‘3S’ (geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning system (GPS) and remote sensing (RS)) technology has an unparalleled advantage. Using HuanJing (HJ)-1A/1B satellite images of a winter wheat field in Shanxi Province, China plus a field survey, crop types and winter wheat planting area were identified through repeated visual interpretations of image information and spatial analyses conducted in GIS. Six vegetation indices were extracted from processed HJ-1A/1B satellite images to determine whether the winter wheat suffered from freezing injury and its degree of severity and recovery, using change vector analysis (CVA), the freeze injury representative vegetation index and the combination of the two methods, respectively. Accuracy of the freezing damage classification results was verified by determining the impact of freezing damage on yield and quantitative analysis. The CVA and the change of normalized difference vegetation index (ΔNDVI) monitoring results were different so a comprehensive analysis of the combination of CVA and ΔNDVI was performed. The area with serious freezing injury covered 0.9% of the total study area, followed by the area of no freezing injury (3.5%), moderate freezing injury (10.2%) and light freezing injury (85.4%). Of the moderate and serious freezing injury areas, 0.2% did not recover; 1.2% of the no freezing injury and light freezing injury areas showed optimal recovery, 15.6% of the light freezing injury and moderate freezing injury areas showed poor recovery, and the remaining areas exhibited general recovery.

Adults who were born preterm are at increased risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in later life. Infants born late preterm are the majority of preterm births; however, the effect of late preterm on risk of cardiovascular disease is unclear. The objective of this study was to assess whether vascular health and cardiac autonomic control differ in a group of late preterm newborn infants compared to a group of term-born infants.

A total of 35 healthy late preterm newborn infants, with normal growth (34–36 completed weeks’ gestation) and 139 term-born infants (37–42 weeks’ gestation) were compared in this study. Aortic wall thickening, assessed as aortic intima–media thickness (IMT) by high-resolution ultrasound, and cardiac autonomic control, assessed by heart rate variability, were measured during the first week of life. Postnatal age of full-term and late preterm infants at the time of the study was 5 days (standard deviation [SD] 5) and 4 days (SD 3), respectively.

Infants born late preterm show reduced aortic IMT (574 μm [SD 51] vs. 612 μm [SD 73]) and reduced heart rate variability [log total power 622.3 (606.5) ms2 vs. 1180. 6 (1114.3) ms2], compared to term infants. These associations remained even after adjustment for sex and birth weight.

Infants born late preterm show selective differences in markers of cardiovascular risk, with potentially beneficial differences in aortic wall thickness in contrast to potentially detrimental differences in autonomic control, when compared with term-born control infants. These findings provide pathophysiologic evidence to support an increased risk of hypertension and sudden cardiac death in individuals born late preterm.

A 2-year fertilization experiment was conducted to study the effect of different ratios of organic (pig) manure on wheat yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). The four treatments were no nitrogen (N) (CK); 100% chemical fertilizer N (urea; T1); 70% chemical fertilizer N + 30% organic manure N (T2) and 50% chemical fertilizer N + 50% organic manure N (T3), with the same amount of applied nitrogen (120 kg/ha). The results showed the maximum grain yield (3049 kg/ha), crop nitrogen uptake (216 kg/ha), NUE (65.4%) and accumulated nitrate nitrogen (NO3−-N in 0–200 cm, 142 kg/ha) were observed in the T1 among all treatments in the first year. However, the largest grain yield (5074 kg/ha), crop nitrogen uptake (244 kg/ha) and NUE (82.5%) were under T2 treatment in the second year. Furthermore, T2 had the maximum NO3−-N content in 0–100 cm layer (116 kg/ha), especially 0–40 cm layer, and the lowest NO3−-N content in 100–200 cm (58.8 kg/ha). However, 50% organic manure N in T3 increased apparent nitrogen loss by 39.0% compared to that in T2. Therefore, 30% organic manure N application was more conducive for enhancing wheat yield and NUE and promoting environmental safety after 1-year fertilization time.

X-ray reference powder patterns and structures have been determined for a series of cobalt- and tungsten-containing cubic alkaline-earth perovskites, (BaxSr1–x)2CoWO6 (x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9). The structure of the end members of the series, Sr2CoWO6 and Ba2CoWO6, were tetragonal and cubic, respectively, agreeing with the literature data. From Rietveld refinements, it was found that when x = 0.1 and 0.2, the structure was tetragonal I4/m (a = 5.60481(6) and 5.62305(11) Å and c = 7.97989(12) and 7.9847(2) Å, respectively; Z = 2). When x > 0.2, the structure was cubic (Fm$\bar{3}$m, No. 225; Z = 4) (from x = 0.3 to 0.9, a increases from 7.98399(13) to 8.08871(10) Å). This tetragonal series of compounds exhibit the characteristics of a distorted double-perovskite structure. The bond valence sum values for the alkaline-earth (Ba, Sr) sites in all (BaxSr1−x)2CoWO6 members are greater than the ideal value of 2.0, indicating over-bonding situation, whereas for the W sites, as x increases, a change from under-bonding to slightly over-bonding situation was observed. Density functional theory calculations revealed that while Sr2CoWO6 is a semiconductor, Ba2CoWO6 and SrBaCoWO6 are half-metals. Powder X-ray diffraction patterns of this series of compounds (BaxSr1−x)2CoWO6, with x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9, have been submitted to be included in the Powder Diffraction File.

Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death among infectious diseases. China has a high burden of TB and accounted for almost 13% of the world's cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB. Spinal TB is one reason for the resurgence of TB in China. Few large case studies of MDR spinal TB in China have been conducted. The aim of this research was to observe the epidemiological characteristics of inpatients with MDR spinal TB in six provinces and cities of China from 1999–2015. This is a multicentre retrospective observational study. Patients' information was collected from the control disease centre and infectious disease database of hospitals in six provinces and cities in China. A total of 3137 patients with spinal TB and 272 patients with MDR spinal TB were analysed. The result showed that MDR spinal TB remains a public health concern and commonly affects patients 15–30 years of age (34.19%). The most common lesions involved the thoracolumbar spine (35.66%). Local pain was the most common symptom (98.53%). Logistic analysis showed that for spinal TB patients, reside in rural district (OR 1.79), advanced in years (OR 1.92) and high education degree (OR 2.22) were independent risk factors for the development of MDR spinal TB. Women were associated with a lower risk of MDR spinal TB (OR 0.48). The most common first-line and second-line resistant drug was isoniazid (68.75%) and levofloxacin (29.04%), respectively. The use of molecular diagnosis resulted in noteworthy clinical advances, including earlier initiation of MDR spinal TB treatment, improved infection control and better clinical outcome. Chemotherapy and surgery can yield satisfactory outcomes with timely diagnosis and long-term treatment. These results enable a better understanding of the MDR spinal TB in China among the general public.

Precise bone cut is fundamental in total knee arthroplasty. However, notching of anterior femoral is not uncommon in clinical practice. Reviewing the article, notching and its complication may reach up to 30% and 2.5%, and there is scanty study of notching on the femoral strength. We therefore conduct the finite element analysis to elucidate the effect of notching on femoral mechanical strength. The computerized tomography images were used as the basis to develop the knee model, which was assumed mainly to consist of cortical and cancellous bones. For the implant joint, Zimmer data was considered partly as the basis to develop the model. This study investigated the femoral improper cut effect on the surgery with a static standing condition. The results show that the anterior femoral cut should be undercut 2 mm to overcut 1 mm during the surgery, in order to prevent bone materials from yielding. The exposure of the cancellous bone may cause bone materials to yield when the femur overcut was 2 mm; the cancellous bone may load too much and result in a fracture when the undercut was 3 mm. The effect of undercut, which was rarely discussed, was particularly addressed in our study. Precise femoral cut is crucial for the longevity of total knee arthroplasty.

Flow over aligned and staggered cube arrays is a classic model problem for rough-wall turbulent boundary layers. Earlier studies of this model problem mainly looked at rough surfaces with a moderate coverage density, i.e. $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{p}>O(3\,\%)$, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{p}$ is the surface coverage density and is defined to be the ratio between the area occupied by the roughness and the total ground area. At lower surface coverage densities, i.e. $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{p}<O(3\,\%)$, it is conventionally thought that cubical roughness acts like isolated roughness elements; and that the single-cube drag coefficient, i.e. $C_{d}\equiv f/(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}U_{h}^{2}h^{2})$, equals $C_{R}$. Here, $f$ is the drag force on one cubical roughness element, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}=\text{const.}$ is the fluid density, $h$ is the height of the cube, $U_{h}$ is the spatially and temporally averaged wind speed at the cube height, and $C_{R}$ is the drag coefficient of an isolated cube. In this work, we conduct large-eddy simulations and direct numerical simulations of flow over wall-mounted cubes with very low surface coverage densities, i.e. $0.08\,\%<\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{p}<4.4\,\%$. The large-eddy simulations are at nominally infinite Reynolds numbers. The results challenge the conventional thinking, and we show that, at very low surface coverage densities, the single-cube drag coefficient may increase as a function of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{p}$. Our analysis suggests that this behaviour may be attributed to secondary turbulent flows. Secondary turbulent flows are often found above spanwise-heterogeneous roughness. Although the roughness considered in this work is nominally homogeneous, the secondary flows in our simulations are very similar to those observed above spanwise-heterogeneous surface roughness. These secondary vortices redistribute the fluid momentum in the outer layer, leading to high-momentum pathways above the wall-mounted cubes and low-momentum pathways at the two sides of the wall-mounted cubes. As a result, the spatially and temporally averaged wind speed at the cube height, i.e. $U_{h}$, is an underestimate of the incoming flow to the cubes, which in turn leads to a large drag coefficient $C_{d}$.

Structure and optical properties have been successfully determined for a series of niobium- and tantalum-containing layered alkaline-earth silicate compounds, Ba3(Nb6−xTax)Si4O26 (x = 0.6, 1.8, 3.0, 4.2, 5.4). The structure of this solid solution was found to be hexagonal P-62m (No. 189), with Z = 1. With x increases from 0.6 to 5.4, the lattice parameter a increases from 8.98804(8) to 9.00565(9) Å and c decreases from 7.83721(10) to 7.75212(12) Å. As a result, the volume decreases from 548.304(11) to 544.479(14) Å3. The (Nb/Ta)O6 distorted octahedra form continuous chains along the c-axis. These (Nb/Ta)O6 chains are in turn linked with the Si2O7 groups to form distorted pentagonal channels in which Ba ions were found. These Ba2+ ions have full occupancy and a 13-fold coordination environment with neighboring oxygen sites. Another salient feature of the structure is the linear Si–O–Si chains. When x in Ba3(Nb6−xTax)Si4O26 increases, the bond valence sum (BVS) values of the Ba sites increase slightly (2.09–2.20), indicating the size of the cage becoming progressively smaller (over-bonding). While SiO cages are also slightly smaller than ideal (BVS range from 4.16 to 4.19), the (Nb/Ta)O6 octahedral cages are slightly larger than ideal (BVS range from 4.87 to 4.90), giving rise to an under-bonding situation. The bandgaps of the solid solution members were measured between 3.39 and 3.59 eV, and the x = 3.0 member was modeled by density functional theory techniques to be 3.07 eV. The bandgaps of these materials indicate that they are potential candidates for ultraviolet photocatalyst.

Laser interaction with an ultra-thin pre-structured target is investigated with the help of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. With the existence of a periodic structure on the target surface, the laser seems to penetrate through the target at its fundamental frequency even if the plasma density of the target is much higher than the laser’s relativistically critical density. The particle-in-cell simulations show that the transmitted laser energy behind the pre-structured target is increased by about two orders of magnitude compared to that behind the flat target. Theoretical analyses show that the transmitted energy behind the pre-structured target is actually re-emitted by electron ‘islands’ formed by the surface plasma waves on the target surfaces. In other words, the radiation with the fundamental frequency is actually ‘surface emission’ on the target rear surface. Besides the intensity of the component with the fundamental frequency, the intensity of the high-order harmonics behind the pre-structured target is also much enhanced compared to that behind the flat target. The enhancement of the high-order harmonics is also related to the surface plasma waves generated on the target surfaces.

Background: Hereditary transthyretin-mediated (hATTR) amyloidosis a hereditary, multi-systemic and life-threatening disease resulting in neuropathy and cardiomyopathy. In the APOLLO study, patisiran, an investigational RNAi therapeutic targeting hepatic TTR production resulted in significant improvement in neuropathy and QoL compared to placebo and was generally well tolerated. Methods: APOLLO, a Phase 3 study of patisiran vs. placebo (NCT01960348) prespecified a cardiac subpopulation (n=126 of 225 total) that included patients with baseline left ventricular (LV) wall thickness ≥ 13mm and no medical history of aortic valve disease or hypertension. Cardiac measures included structure and function by electrocardiography, changes in NT-proBNP and 10-MWT gait speed. Results: At 18 months, patisiran treatment resulted in a mean reduction in LV wall thickness of 1 mm (p=0.017) compared to baseline, which was associated with significant improvements relative to placebo in LV end diastolic volume (+8.31 mL, p=0.036), global longitudinal strain (-1.37%, p=0.015) and NT-proBNP (55% reduction, p=7.7 x 10-8) (Figure 1). Gait speed was also improved relative to placebo (+0.35 m/sec, p=7.4 x 10-9). Rate of death or hospitalization was lower with patisiran. mNIS+7 results in the cardiac subpopulation will also be presented. Conclusions: These data suggest patisiran has the potential to halt or reverse cardiac manifestations of hATTR amyloidosis.

Triploid and pentaploid breeding is of great importance in agricultural production, but it is not always easy to obtain double ploidy parents. However, in fishes, chromosome ploidy is diversiform, which may provide natural parental resources for triploid and pentaploid breeding. Both tetraploid and hexaploid exist in Schizothorax fishes, which were thought to belong to different subfamilies with tetraploid Percocypris fishes in morphology, but they are sister genera in molecule. Fortunately, the pentaploid hybrid fishes have been successfully obtained by hybridization of Schizothorax wangchiachii (♀, 2n = 6X = 148) × Percocypris pingi (♂, 2n = 4X = 98). To understand the genetic and morphological difference among the hybrid fishes and their parents, four methods were used in this study: morphology, karyotype, red blood cell (RBC) DNA content determination and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR). In morphology, the hybrid fishes were steady, and between their parents with no obvious preference. The chromosome numbers of P. pingi have been reported as 2n = 4X = 98. In this study, the karyotype of S. wangchiachii was 2n = 6X = 148 = 36m + 34sm + 12st + 66t, while that the hybrid fishes was 2n = 5X = 123 = 39m + 28sm + 5st + 51t. Similarly, the RBC DNA content of the hybrid fishes was intermediate among their parents. In ISSR, the within-group genetic diversity of hybrid fishes was higher than that of their parents. Moreover, the genetic distance of hybrid fishes between P. pingi and S.wangchiachii was closely related to that of their parental ploidy, suggesting that parental genetic material stably coexisted in the hybrid fishes. This is the first report to show a stable pentaploid F1 hybrids produced by hybridization of a hexaploid and a tetraploid in aquaculture.

Muons produced by the Bethe–Heitler process from laser wakefield accelerated electrons interacting with high $Z$ materials have velocities close to the laser wakefield. It is possible to accelerate those muons with laser wakefield directly. Therefore for the first time we propose an all-optical ‘Generator and Booster’ scheme to accelerate the produced muons by another laser wakefield to supply a prompt, compact, low cost and controllable muon source in laser laboratories. The trapping and acceleration of muons are analyzed by one-dimensional analytic model and verified by two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. It is shown that muons can be trapped in a broad energy range and accelerated to higher energy than that of electrons for longer dephasing length. We further extrapolate the dependence of the maximum acceleration energy of muons with the laser wakefield relativistic factor $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$ and the relevant initial energy $E_{0}$. It is shown that a maximum energy up to 15.2 GeV is promising with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}=46$ and $E_{0}=1.45~\text{GeV}$ on the existing short pulse laser facilities.