The kinetic characteristics of crude oil pyrolysis experiments form the basis for quantitative analysis of shale oil content in Rock-Eval pyrolysis experiments. To study the thermal evaporation kinetics of crude oil in shale, pyrolysis experiments of whole source rock sample and post-extracted sample were carried out on Rock-Eval 6 with the heating rates of 5, 15 and 25°C min−1, respectively. The thermal evaporation of crude oil can be described using a parallel first-order reaction model. A simple method for calculating the kinetic characteristics of the thermal evaporation of extracted crude oil is proposed.

Household entrepreneurship is a basic unit of entrepreneurial activity, and a crucial aspect of connecting personal and social wellbeing. This study examines the relationship between the proportion of elderly family members and household entrepreneurship. This study also assesses the mediating effect of the middle-aged generation's support to their parents and the moderating effect of the parents’ support with respect to the proportion of elderly family members and entrepreneurship. We use data from the China Family Panel Studies. We adopt the instrumental variable method to deal with endogeneity, robustness and credibility of the estimation results. The results show that a higher proportion of elderly family members impedes household entrepreneurship. Moreover, the financial and instrumental support provided by the middle-aged generation to their parents significantly mediates the relationship between the proportion of elderly family members and household entrepreneurship. In turn, parents’ financial support to the middle-aged generation moderates the focal relationship; however, parents’ instrumental support does not moderate the focal relationship. These findings emphasise the need to develop a comprehensive social security network for older adults that will indirectly promote household entrepreneurship, and improve personal and social wellbeing.

This study gives insights into the interfacial instability of water droplets through a combination of laboratory experiments, numerical simulations and analytical modelling. An experiment is conducted in a narrow gap between two plates to model the two-dimensional cylindrical geometry, and a pulsed laser beam is focused inside a water droplet to generate a cavitation bubble. Three distinct characteristics of droplet deformation can be observed: (i) splashing; (ii) ventilating; and (iii) a stable state. In addition, an analytical model considering the Rayleigh–Taylor instability and bubble oscillation is developed based on the assumption that fluid is inviscid and incompressible. The analytical model is solved to obtain a phase diagram describing three distinct phenomena. Two dimensionless parameters, $\hat {\eta }_{ins}$ and $\hat {\eta }_{sta}$, are used to determine the boundaries between different regimes. The parameter $\hat {\eta }_{ins}$ is defined by the ratio of the perturbation amplitude to the difference between the droplet and bubble radii, whereas the other parameter $\hat {\eta }_{sta}$ is defined by the ratio of the perturbation amplitude to the initial droplet radius. Interfacial instability is induced when the perturbed droplet surface penetrates the bubble boundary, namely, $\rvert \hat {\eta }_{ins} \rvert \geq 1$. Splashing and ventilating phenomena occur for $\hat {\eta }_{ins}\geq 1$ and $\hat {\eta }_{ins}\leq -1$, respectively. A stable state occurs when droplet fragmentation does not appear despite small-amplitude perturbations for $\hat {\eta }_{sta}\leq 0.1$. There is a transition zone between the ventilating and stable state, which is bounded by $\hat {\eta }_{ins} = -1$ and $\hat {\eta }_{sta} = 0.1$. Finally, the phase diagram is verified by the experimental and numerical results.

In the present study, we analysed the effects of SNP rs174547 (T/C) in the fatty acid desaturase 1 (FADS1) gene on long-chain PUFA levels. Four databases were searched to retrieve related literature with keywords such as fatty acid (FA), SNP, FADS1 and rs174547. A meta-analysis of the data was performed using Stata12.0 software, including summary statistics, test for heterogeneity, evaluation of publication bias, subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis. The associations between rs174547 in FADS1 and seven types of FA, and Δ-5 (D5D) and Δ-6 fatty acid desaturase (D6D) activity were assessed based on the pooled results from eleven papers. A total of 3713 individuals (1529 TT and 2184 TC + CC) were included. The results demonstrated that minor C allele carriers of rs174547 had higher linoleic acid (LA; P < 0·001) and α-linolenic acid (P = 0·020) levels, lower γ-linolenic acid (GLA; P = 0·001) and arachidonic acid (P = 0·024) levels, and lower D5D (P = 0·005) and D6D (P = 0·004) activities than the TT genotype group. Stratification analysis showed that minor C allele carriers of rs174547 had higher LA and lower GLA levels and lower D6D activities in plasma (LA, P < 0·001; GLA, P < 0·001; D6D activity, P < 0·001) samples and in Asian populations (LA, P < 0·001; GLA, P = 0·001; D6D activity, P = 0·001) than the TT genotype group. In conclusion, minor C allele carriers of the SNP rs174547 were associated with decreased activity of D5D and D6D.

Nutritional therapy is a cornerstone of burns management. The optimal macronutrient intake for wound healing after burn injury has not been identified, although high-energy, high-protein diets are favoured. The present study aimed to identify the optimal macronutrient intake for burn wound healing. The geometric framework (GF) was used to analyse wound healing after a 10 % total body surface area contact burn in mice ad libitum fed one of the eleven high-energy diets, varying in macronutrient composition with protein (P5−60 %), carbohydrate (C20−75 %) and fat (F20−75 %). In the GF study, the optimal ratio for wound healing was identified as a moderate-protein, high-carbohydrate diet with a protein:carbohydrate:fat (P:C:F) ratio of 1:4:2. High carbohydrate intake was associated with lower mortality, improved body weight and a beneficial pattern of body fat reserves. Protein intake was essential to prevent weight loss and mortality, but a protein intake target of about 7 kJ/d (about 15 % of energy intake) was identified, above which no further benefit was gained. High protein intake was associated with delayed wound healing and increased liver and spleen weight. As the GF study demonstrated that an initial very high protein intake prevented mortality, a very high-protein, moderate-carbohydrate diet (P40:C42:F18) was specifically designed. The dynamic diet study was also designed to combine and validate the benefits of an initial very high protein intake for mortality, and subsequent moderate protein, high carbohydrate intake for optimal wound healing. The dynamic feeding experiment showed switching from an initial very high-protein diet to the optimal moderate-protein, high-carbohydrate diet accelerated wound healing whilst preventing mortality and liver enlargement.

To reduce the operational complexity of the multipath estimating delay lock loop (MEDLL) and improve its anti-multipath performance for strobe correlators, a combination anti-multipath scheme, namely, the MEDLL on-strobe correlation technique, is proposed for global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signal processing. Short-delay multipath rays are separated from the strobe correlation function by the MEDLL mechanism; the dot product between the estimation residue and the standard correlation function or the BOC-PRN correlation function is then computed to eliminate the potential tracking ambiguity. Finally, this non-coherent combination result is sent to the loop filter to obtain anti-multipath code tracking. The proposed method is analysed via simulator data with a software receiver under different front-end bandwidth conditions. The results corroborate the better multipath mitigation capability and lower computational burden, although it is still difficult to eliminate all multipath interference, especially when the front-end bandwidth is insufficient.

We study a nonpreemptive scheduling on two parallel identical machines with a dedicated loading server and a dedicated unloading server. Each job has to be loaded by the loading server before being processed on one of the machines and unloaded immediately by the unloading server after its processing. The loading and unloading times are both equal to one unit of time. The goal is to minimize the makespan. Since the problem is NP-hard, we apply the classical list scheduling and largest processing time heuristics, and show that they have worst-case ratios, $8/5$ and $6/5$, respectively.

We investigate the defect structures around a spherical colloidal particle in a cholesteric liquid crystal using spectral method, which is specially devised to cope with the inhomogeneity of the cholesteric at infinity. We pay particular attention to the cholesteric counterparts of nematic metastable configurations. When the spherical colloidal particle imposes strong homeotropic anchoring on its surface, besides the well-known twisted Saturn ring, we find another metastable defect configuration, which corresponds to the dipole in a nematic, without outside confinement. This configuration is energetically preferable to the twisted Saturn ring when the particle size is large compared to the nematic coherence length and small compared to the cholesteric pitch. When the colloidal particle imposes strong planar anchoring, we find the cholesteric twist can result in a split of the defect core on the particle surface similar to that found in a nematic liquid crystal by lowering temperature or increasing particle size.

In this article, we investigated the effect of Sn grain structure on the electromigration (EM) reliability of Sn–2.5Ag (wt%) solder joints used in flip-chip packages. The electron backscattering diffraction technique was applied to characterize the Sn grain size and orientation of the solder joints. Failure analyses on Sn–2.5Ag solder joints after EM tests showed that the Sn grain structure was important in controlling the kinetics of the intermetallic compound growth and void formation under EM. Further microstructural analysis revealed that the grain sizes and orientations of the solder joints after multiple solder reflows were statistically different from those with a single solder reflow and resulted in an improved EM reliability. Thermal annealing effect was also investigated to separate the thermal effect from the EM-induced effect. Results obtained in this study demonstrated that EM reliability of Pb-free solder joints could be improved by optimization of the Sn grain structure.

International relations (IR) is both a science and an art, i.e. the unity of object and subject. Traditional international relations theories (IRT) have probed the laws of IR, in an attempt to become the universal science. IRT have developed into a class doctrine that defends the legitimacy of the western international system as a result of proceeding from the reality of IR, while neglecting its evolving process, and overlooking the meaning of art and the presence of multi-international systems. In other words, IRT have turned into what Karl Marx might have deemed as the vulgar international relations theories (VIRT). For this reason, we declare the end of international relations theories. This phenomenon can only be negated by the so-called Chinese School, which will set the sustainable and harmonious relations among nations, between state and non-state actors, and within states and non-state actors (in one word ‘global-society’) in five life-forces of economy, politics, military, culture, and religion. Consequently, this will bring about a real regression of nationality and compatible development of various international systems.