Xiaonanshan is an archaeological site dated to 16.5–13.5 cal kyr BP, situated beside the Ussuri River in China. The lithic assemblages feature microblade debitage, bifacial points and stone adzes, which provide important new materials for this project to explore Neolithisation in the Amur River basin of northeast Asia.

The interplay between sustainability and anthropogenic landscape transformation is crucial to understanding the past decline and eradication of wild animals. The Bronze Age site of Zaoshugounao is located in the Guanzhong region of China, an area critical in the formation and development of early Chinese civilisation. Drawing upon zooarchaeological, palaeoenvironmental and textual evidence, analysis of sika deer remains from Zaoshugounao reveals sustainable sika deer-hunting strategies at the site, despite an overall long-term trend in the sika deer population decline and habitat loss. The authors’ results highlight the complexity and diversity of human-sika relations and contribute to ongoing discussions surrounding wild animal eradication and conservation in China.

North-east China occupies an important geographic position for understanding the process of Neolithisation in East Asia. Although archaeologists have long debated the trajectory of change in this region, a lack of intensive survey and excavation has precluded convincing interpretations. This article presents research on the newly excavated sites of Huayang and Taoshan in the southern Lesser Khingan Mountains, with a particular focus on the lithic assemblages. Comparative and environmental analyses demonstrate the largely uniform trajectory of lithic technologies across north-east China and close correspondence with Late Glacial palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental changes.

Underground Nuclear Astrophysics in China (JUNA) will take the advantage of the ultra-low background in Jinping underground lab. High current accelerator with an ECR source and detectors were commissioned. JUNA plans to study directly a number of nuclear reactions important to hydrostatic stellar evolution at their relevant stellar energies. At the first period, JUNA aims at the direct measurements of 25Mg(p,γ)26 Al, 19F(p,α) 16 O, 13C(α, n) 16O and 12C(α,γ) 16O near the Gamow window. The current progress of JUNA will be given.

Monosized spherical Cu–20% Sn (wt%) alloy particles with diameter ranging from 70.6 to 334.0 μm were prepared by the pulsated orifice ejection method (termed “POEM”). Fully dense without pores and bulk inclusions, the cross-sectional micrographs of the spherical alloy particles indicate an even distribution of Cu and Sn. These spherical Cu–Sn alloy particles exhibit a good spherical shape and a narrow size distribution, suggesting that the liquid Cu–Sn alloy can completely break the balance between the surface tension and the liquid static pressure in the crucible micropores and accurately control the volume of the droplets. Furthermore, the cooling rate of spherical Cu–20% Sn alloy particles is estimated by a Newton’s cooling model. The cooling rate of the Cu–20% Sn alloy particle decreases gradually with the particle diameter increasing. Smaller particles have higher cooling rates and when the particle diameter is less than 70 μm, the cooling rate of particles can reach more than 3.3 × 104 K/s. The secondary dendrite arm spacing has strong dependence on particle diameter which increases gradually with the increase of particle diameter. The results demonstrate that POEM is an effective route for fabrication of high-quality monosized Cu–20% Sn alloy particles.

A Cu–0.13Cr–0.074Ag (wt%) alloy has been synthesized by the nonvacuum melting and casting followed by thermal-mechanical treatment, and microstructure and mechanical properties have been tailored to make a trade-off between the strength and the electrical conductivity. Results illuminated that the designed alloy has a tensile strength of 473 MPa, a hardness of 140 HV, a yield strength of 446 MPa, an elongation of 10.5%, and an electrical conductivity of 94.5% IACS. Microstructure observations of the samples aged at 480 °C showed that: an fcc structure Cr-phase with a cube-on-cube orientation relationship with the Cu matrix was formed as aged for 15 min, while an ordered bcc structure Cr phase with B2 structure formed as aged for 2 h. The 3DAP results revealed that the Cr was formed to be precipitates and the Ag was formed as solutes distributing evenly in matrix. The high electrical conductivity was ascribed to the Cr element precipitated from the Cu matrix, Ag dissolved in the Cu matrix had little effect on the scattering of Cu electron.

Two transmission curved crystal spectrometers are designed to measure the hard x-ray emission in the laser fusion experiment of Compton radiography of implosion target on ShenGuang-III laser facility in China. Cylindrically curved ${\it\alpha}$-quartz (10–11) crystals with curvature radii of 150 and 300 mm are used to cover spectral ranges of 10–56 and 17–100 keV, respectively. The distance between the crystal and the x-ray source can be changed over a broad distance from 200 to 1500 mm. The optical design, including the integral reflectivity of the curved crystal, the sensitivity, and the spectral resolution of the spectrometers, is discussed. We also provide mechanic design details and experimental results using a Mo anode x-ray source. High-quality spectra were obtained. We confirmed that the spectral resolution can be improved by increasing the working distance, which is the distance between the recording medium and the Rowland circle.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effects of osteopontin neutralization treatment on schistosome-induced liver injury in BALB/C mice. We randomly divided 100 BALB/C mice into groups A, B, C, D and group E. Mice in all groups except group A were abdominally infected with schistosomal cercariae to induce a schistosomal hepatopathological model. Mice in group C, D and group E were respectively administered with praziquantel, praziquantel plus colchicine and praziquantel plus neutralizing osteopontin antibody. We extracted mouse liver tissues at 3 and 9 weeks after the ‘stool-eggs-positive’ day, observed liver histopathological changes by haematoxylin-eosin and Masson trichrome staining and detected the expression of osteopontin, alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β1) by immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR and Western blot. We found that praziquantel plus neutralizing osteopontin antibody treatment significantly decreased the granuloma dimension, the percentage of collagen and the expression of osteopontin, α-SMA and TGF-β1 compared to praziquantel plus colchicine treatment in both the acute and chronic stage of schistosomal liver damage (P<0·05). So we believe that the combined regimen of osteopontin immunoneutralization and anti-helminthic treatment can reduce the granulomatous response and liver fibrosis during the schistosomal hepatopathologic course.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the immediate and long-term effects of early feed restriction (ER) on morphology and gene expression of lateral gastrocnemius muscle. Newly hatched crossbred broiler chickens were allocated into control and ER groups, the latter being free-fed on alternate days from hatch to 14 days of age (14 d), followed by ad libitum feeding as the control group until 63 d. The lateral gastrocnemius muscle was taken at 14 and 63 d, respectively for myofibre typing by both myosin ATPase staining and relative quantification of myosin heavy chain (MyHC) mRNA for slow-twitch (SM), red fast-twitch (FRM) and white fast-twitch (FWM) myofibres. The body weight and lateral gastrocnemius weight were significantly lower in the ER group, accompanied by significantly reduced serum triiodothyronine. The ER group exhibited significantly higher SM and FRM MyHC expression at 14 d, but lower SM expression at 63 d. Myosin ATPase staining revealed a similar pattern. The percentage of SM was higher at 14 d while lower at 63 d in the ER group. These morphological changes were accompanied by changes of mRNA expression for growth-related genes. The ER group expressed lower insulin-like growth factoar I (IGF-I) and higher IGF-I receptor (IGF-IR) at 14 d, yet significantly increased growth hormone receptor and IGF-IR mRNA at 63 d. These results indicate that ER may delay the slow to fast myofibre conversion as an immediate effect, but would result in a lower percentage of slow fibres owing to compensatory growth in the long term, which involves changes of mRNA expression for the growth-related genes in the muscle.

A simple and convenient solvothermal reaction has been developed to produce CuInS2 nanorods and nanotubes from the elements in ethylenediamine at 280 °C. The products were characterized by x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Analysis shows that the coordinating ability of ethylenediamine and the existence of liquid In may play important roles in the growth of one-dimension nanocrystallites and the electron-transfer reaction. In addition, spherical CuInS2 micrometer particles were obtained at 350 °C.

Let $\rho_0$ be the standard action of a higher-rank lattice $\Gamma$ on a torus by automorphisms induced by a homomorphism $\pi_0:\Gamma\to SL(n,{\Bbb Z})$. Assume that there exists an abelian group ${\cal A}\subset \Gamma$ such that $\pi_0({\cal A})$ satisfies the following conditions: (1) ${\cal A}$ is ${\Bbb R}$-diagonalizable; (2) there exists an element $a\in {\cal A}$, such that none of its eigenvalues $\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_n$ has unit absolute value, and for all $i,j,k=1,\dots,n$, $|\lambda_i\lambda_j|\neq|\lambda_k|$; (3) for each Lyapunov functional $\chi_i$, there exist finitely many elements $a_j\in {\cal A}$ such that $E_{\chi_i}=\cap_{j} E^u(a_j)$ (see \S1 for definitions). Then $\rho_0$ is locally rigid. This local rigidity result differs from earlier ones in that it does not require a certain one-dimensionality condition.