The optics roughness in Öffner stretchers has been widely identified as a major cause of temporal contrast degradation at tens of picoseconds before the main pulse. However, we find that amplifier-induced noise may become the decisive factor for temporal contrast deterioration at a similar time window with the increase of the B-integral in chirped-pulse amplification systems. Even employing a high-precision convex mirror with root-mean-square roughness values better than 0.2 nm, the experimental measurements show that amplifier-induced noise generates asymmetric profiles under nonlinear effects – exhibiting an obvious pre-pedestal growth proportional to the accumulated B-integral. Analogous to post-to-pre-pulse conversion dynamics, the numerical simulations demonstrate the impact of the B-integral on the pre-pedestal, especially when the pulse peak power scales from the terawatt level to the petawatt level.

High-quality single-shot measurement for the complete characterization of ultrafast light fields remains challenging. This paper proposes SS-TSPS-SPIDER, a single-shot scheme combining spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER) with two-step phase-shifting (TSPS). This design uses a non-polarizing beam splitter to combine two orthogonally incident sum-frequency pulses, from whose two outputs it acquires two spectral interferograms with a π-phase shift. Our experimental results demonstrate that the setup can measure the group delay dispersion of a 3-mm-thick BK7 glass with an error of less than 14.1 mrad over a 45 THz range centered at 375 THz, corresponding to a 10 dB spectral bandwidth, exhibiting superior measurement accuracy and a higher signal-to-noise ratio compared with traditional SPIDER. Thus, SS-TSPS-SPIDER is well suited for characterizing ultra-intense, low-repetition-rate or single-shot ultrashort pulses, which are vital in strong-field physics, attosecond science and other extreme-physics frontiers .

The genus Oochoristica Lühe, 1898 (Cyclophyllidea: Linstowiidae) primarily parasitizes reptiles. A new species of Oochoristica was collected from the small intestine of Eremias roborowskii (Bedriaga, 1906), from the Turpan Basin of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Following hematoxylin staining, through microscopic examination and detailed morphological description, a comparative morphometric analysis was conducted against closely related congeners, with particular emphasis on key taxonomic indicators, including the reproductive system and cephalic structures. Phylogenetic relationships were inferred using a multilocus analysis based on the 18S rRNA, ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 and COI gene regions. Genetic distances were calculated to support species delimitation. The parasite exhibits the following diagnostic features: proglottids significantly wider than long; a scolex lacking a rostellum and hooks; 20–25 spherical testes clustered in the posterior region of the proglottid; genital pores irregularly alternating along the lateral margins; a bilobed, highly branched ovary; and an elliptical vitellarium situated anterior to the ovary. Phylogenetic trees demonstrated that the new species formed a distinct, well-supported clade with lower intraspecific genetic variation than interspecific divergence, thereby supporting its status as an independent species. This new species is the 19th Oochoristica taxon recorded in the Palaearctic realm and the first novel cestode found in Eremias roborowskii. In the present study, an integrative taxonomic approach was employed, which combined comparative morphology with molecular phylogenetics and zoogeographic analyses, thereby elucidating the phylogenetic significance of this species within the genus Oochoristica.

This work presents an integrated modelling study of fast-proton distributions generated by ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) minority heating in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). Using a series of high-confinement (H-mode) discharges with increasing ICRF power levels from 0.8 to 2.4 MW, fast protons were produced via minority heating mechanisms and analysed through simulations using the ASCOT code. The results reveal that the fast protons are primarily concentrated near the fundamental cyclotron resonance layer and exhibit strong power-dependent behaviour in both real-space (R–Z) distribution and velocity space, where R is the major radius and Z is the vertical coordinate. As the ICRF power increases, the energetic proton population shows significant spatial broadening and energy enhancement, reaching up to 1 MeV. The fast-ion pitch-angle distribution becomes increasingly anisotropic, with high-energy ions concentrated around $|\textit{v}_{\|}/\textit{v}| \lt 0.5$, where $\nu$ is the magnitude (speed) of the full velocity vector of the particle. Furthermore, the energy density of fast ions aligns well with the ICRF power deposition profile, confirming efficient central-core heating. These findings, which provide insight into fast-ion behaviour and ICRF heating characteristics in EAST plasmas, also support future fast-ion diagnostics and performance control strategies in EAST and similar experimental conditions.

We first introduce and investigate a new class of $T_0$-spaces – strong $R$-spaces, which are stronger than both $R$-spaces and strongly well-filtered spaces. It is proved that any sup-complete poset equipped with the upper topology is a strong $R$-space, and the Hoare power space of a $T_0$-space is a strong $R$-space. Hence, the upper topology on a sup-complete poset is strongly well-filtered, and the Hoare power space of a $T_0$-space is strongly well-filtered, which answers two problems recently posed by Xu.

This case report presents mid- to long-term outcomes of thoracic endovascular aortic repair for high-risk type B aortic dissection in a 15-year-old patient with myosin heavy chain protein 11 genetic mutations. A CT scan showed the primary entry tear located on the lesser curvature near the left subclavian artery, and the dissection originated from the descending aorta to the abdominal aorta, accompanied by 80% narrowing of the true lumen. Following successful endovascular therapy using stent-grafts, the patient recovered well. A four-year follow-up CT scan showed significant thoracic aorta remodelling.

Allanite is a REE-rich accessory mineral commonly enriched in Th and U and is therefore well suited to U-Th-Pb geochronology. However, widely used international allanite reference materials typically contain common Pb and are not readily accessible. Zircon reference materials are robust, available, and have been applied to allanite age determination via non-matrix-matched LA-ICP-MS calibration, but their performance requires further evaluation. In this study, we provide radiometric ages for magmatic allanite from two Cretaceous granite plutons (Wanganzhen, sample 10581-1 and Heigoubei, sample 10426-1) in the northern Taihang Orogen, China, using zircon reference materials 91500 and Plešovice as primary standards and for quality control. Petrography and trace-element signatures indicate negligible hydrothermal alteration. Tera-Wasserburg lower-intercept ages for allanite sample 10581-1 range from 128.0 ± 4.9 Ma (24 μm spot size) to 135.0 ± 3.0 Ma (60 μm), and for sample 10426-1 from 110.0 ± 22.6 Ma (24 μm) to 108.9 ± 9.9 Ma (60 μm). Plešovice-calibrated results are comparable (123.9 ± 5.4 to 131.9 ± 4.0 Ma; 100.0 ± 28 to 113.0 ± 15 Ma). All allanite ages overlap within uncertainty with coeval zircon U-Pb ages (132.0 ± 0.8 Ma and 110.3 ± 0.8 Ma). Although Th-Pb ages decouple from U-Pb ages at 24 and 44 μm, probably due to different fractionation behaviours between zircon and allanite, the overall results demonstrate that zircon 91500 and Plešovice are suitable reference materials for allanite U-Th-Pb age determination. A spot size of 32–44 μm is recommended. This study provides validation for the non-matrix-matched U-Th-Pb age determination method of allanite using zircon standards, thereby expanding the applicability of allanite geochronology.

Work on the relationship between regulation and bribery suggests that bribes are a joint function of the demands of bureaucrats and the supply of business managers willing to pay them. However, due to biases in measurement, empirical work has concentrated on country-level, demand-side drivers, while research on factors that lead businesses to bribe remains theoretically rich but empirically underdeveloped. We contribute to the burgeoning work on the supply of bribery with a formal model that predicts poorly managed firms may strategically initiate bribes because resource constraints and/or poor service quality necessitate shortcuts in regulatory compliance. To test these theories, we present two connected studies. The first demonstrates that the predictions are consistent with cross-national business survey data. The second, a field experiment, randomly assigned firms to management training courses in Vietnam. Using detailed accounting books, we find that firms in the management course paid monthly bribes less than one-fifth the size ($227 less) of the placebo group, and, consistent with our predictions, had higher levels of regulatory compliance.

To mitigate inhomogeneous thermal and stress effects caused by multi-pulse accumulation in laser–material interactions, we propose an all-optical strategy to generate a structured beam, termed a ‘drill-like laser’, featuring a petal-shaped intensity profile with stochastic rotation by shot-to-shot control. The strategy involves generating collinear signal and idler pulses carrying conjugated orbital angular momenta via optical parametric amplification (OPA). The pulses then interfere with each other to form a beam with petal-shaped intensity structure, whose orientation is governed by their carrier-envelope phase (CEP) difference. The strategy is further implemented with a dual-stage OPA system pumped by an 800-Hz–30-fs–800-nm femtosecond laser, where the CEP difference is directly controlled by the pump CEP. Experimentally, a drill-like laser at 1.6 μm is demonstrated with stochastic shot-to-shot intensity rotation, resulting from the shot-to-shot random fluctuation of the pump CEPs, which has been validated using dual-line pump–probe detection via sum-frequency generation. Crucially, since the interference arises from two beams with free-space eigenmodes, rather than angular-dispersion-based spatiotemporal coupling, the drill-like laser maintains high propagation stability and is scalable in power by conventional laser amplification, holding great potential for applications in precision laser processing and other high-field scenarios.

Legged robots operating in irregular environments are often subjected to compound disturbances such as tilts and vibrations, which can degrade attitude stability and motion reliability. This paper presents a real-time disturbance-adaptive control framework for a hexapod robot. The proposed system integrates quaternion-based attitude estimation using an extended Kalman filter (EKF), a double-threshold pose classifier, and a modular gait library and is implemented on an embedded controller with a 2 ms control-loop latency. Analytical verification and laboratory experiments demonstrate that the proposed control loop achieves uniform ultimate boundedness (UUB) under deterministic hybrid disturbances composed of controlled tilt and vibration, with a mean recovery time of 5.7 s. These results demonstrate that a lightweight rule-based controller can ensure reliable posture recovery within the experimentally validated laboratory scenarios, providing a foundation for future extensions to more complex environments. The main contributions of this work are (1) a disturbance-adaptive gait selection architecture for quasi-static stabilization, (2) a noise-robust EKF-based attitude estimation and double-threshold pose determination scheme, and (3) a concise Lyapunov-based stability analysis demonstrating UUB of the closed-loop system.

We present an experimental study of proton acceleration driven by femtosecond multi-PW lasers of three different prepulse parameters with the peak laser intensity of 1.2 × 1021 W/cm2 irradiating micrometre-thick metal foils. For 4-μm-thick copper foils, the highest-energy proton beam of 58.9 MeV is generated with the moderate-contrast laser, while the low-contrast or high-contrast lasers result in the lower proton cutoff energies. The one-dimensional hydrodynamic and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations indicate that the front preplasma of foils induced by the laser prepulse can enhance electron acceleration and in turn improve proton acceleration, while the rear preplasma will weaken the sheath field and be unfavourable for accelerating ions. For the case of the moderate contrast, the scale length of the front preplasma is long enough to generate high-temperature electrons compared to the high-contrast case, and the scale length of the rear preplasma is so short that the sheath field still remains strong compared with the low-contrast case, which is advantageous for generating high-energy protons. Meanwhile, a concrete map is theoretically given for accelerating higher-energy protons. This work extends the concept of the prepulse effect on target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) to a wider range of laser parameters (multi-PW, 1021 W/cm2), representing an important step towards potential applications of TNSA-driven proton sources, especially considering that PW and even 10 PW laser facilities exist all around the world.

Acute effects of a daily dose of red wine may cause deterioration of visual function; however, there is limited information on healthy individuals. This study aims to investigate acute effects of daily red wine consumption on visual function and retinal microvasculature in healthy young adults through a randomised self-controlled design and to explore the molecular mechanisms using an animal model. In healthy young adults’ study, twenty-seven adults with follow-up at baseline, 0·5 h and 2 h after consuming 300 ml of either red wine or water underwent blood biochemistry, visual function, morphology and blood flow of retinal and choroidal vasculatures, and cerebral blood flow (CBF) evaluation. Acute red wine consumption caused abnormal changes in retinal function (multifocal visual electrophysiology) that preceded changes in vision. Macular vessel diameter index (VDI) increased significantly at 0·5 h but decreased significantly at 2 h, despite increased regional CBF following red wine consumption, which was consistent with increased choroidal thickness and decreased retinal thickness. Animal experiments conducted on Brown Norway rats demonstrated a significant decrease in retinal VDI and vessel area density (VAD) associated with increased reactive oxygen species production following red wine administration, as well as decreased endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and increased endothelin-1 (ET-1) levels in the retina. Consequently, red wine consumption caused abnormal changes in retinal function and microvascular constriction in healthy young adults, and an animal model suggested that the underlying mechanism may involve the regulation of eNOS and ET-1 levels in the retina. These findings imply the potential detrimental effects of drinking habits on individuals with retinal ischaemic diseases.

High BMI is an important risk factor for female colon and rectal, ovarian and uterine cancers. Current comprehensive studies on its effects on these cancers are limited. This paper aims to explore regional and age differences in the impact of high BMI on these cancers and the commonalities among the three by using the Global Burden of Disease 2021. Deaths, disability-adjusted life years and their age-standardised rates for these cancers were retrieved from 1990 to 2021, and burden trends were assessed using the estimated annual percentage change and percentage changes. The study also analysed the correlation between age-standardised rate and socio-demographic index across twenty-one regions and projected future disease burden trends using the Bayesian Age-Period-Cohort model. Results showed that the global burden of female colon and rectal cancer declined since 1990 but remained at the highest level among the three cancers in 2021. At the same time, these three cancers had high burdens in high-income areas. Since 1990, ovarian and uterine cancer burdens attributable to high BMI increased, and all three burdens grew fastest in low-middle-income regions and among younger people. The burden of all three is projected to continue increasing through 2050. This study confirms that high BMI’s impact on these cancers is regional and age-specific, with long-term effects. Therefore, subsequent public health interventions should adopt more targeted obesity prevention and control strategies based on national and regional situations to effectively mitigate the adverse effects of high BMI on these cancers.