The double-cone ignition (DCI) scheme optimizes laser energy coupling efficiency by decoupling the compression and heating processes. During heating, picosecond (ps) lasers are focused inside a heating cone to generate fast electrons that subsequently transport through the cone tip into high-density pre-compressed plasma and deposit their energy. The quality of fast-electron generation is critically sensitive to the inner surface condition of the heating cone tip. However, during the implosion, the continuously rising temperature and density of the colliding plasmas drive a shock wave that impacts the tip of the heating cone. A premature breakout of the tip would severely degrade the fast-electron generation and increase the beam divergence. This work experimentally investigates the shock-wave-induced cone tip breakout under DCI-relevant conditions. The results show that the shock wave breaks the cone tip later than the injection time of the ps laser and does not significantly affect the heating process.

Bees, as vital pollinators, are currently confronting numerous survival threats. Balanced amino acid nutrient have a positive impact on helping bees to resist pathogens and pesticides. This study aims to explore the interaction between leucine (Leu) and isoleucine (Ile) on key physiological parameters of Apis mellifera ligustica (Apidae: Hymenoptera) colony. The experiment was designed into four distinct dietary groups, including control diet (CK): 6.8 g/kg Leu + 3.9 g/kg Ile; high Ile diet: 6.8 g/kg Leu + 21.9 g/kg Ile; high Leu diet: 43.8 g/kg Leu + 3.9 g/kg Ile; diet with both high L-I: 43.8 g/kg Leu + 21.9 g/kg Ile. The results showed that Leu and Ile, to a considerable extent, promote the growth and vitality of the bee colony, with Ile mitigating Leu-induced absorption inhibition. Leu and Ile synergistically reduced haemolymph triglyceride via upregulated activities of fatty acid synthase and acetyl-CoA carboxylase, and expression of Lipase 1 and adipokinetic hormone receptor compared with CK. Furthermore, L-I treatment increased key activities of immune enzymes like phenol oxidase, lysozyme, glucose oxidase, and altered expression of antimicrobial peptides (abaecin, apidaecin, and defensin 1), indicating coordinated immunomodulation. In conclusion, within the context of this study, 43.8 g/kg Leu and 21.9 g/kg Ile in the artificial pollen substitute feed prove to be beneficial for the nutrient deposition and immunity of individual bees. This work provides a framework for optimising artificial pollen diets, offering experimental guidance towards more effective strategies in sustainable beekeeping.

Conventional active ankle exoskeletons are often bulky and heavily reliant on external power sources. This study presents a lightweight and flexible passive ankle exoskeleton (LFPA-EXO) aimed at reducing metabolic cost of walking. The LFPA-EXO features a gait-adaptive clutch (GA-clutch) and a super-elastic composite booster (SC-booster). By matching the walking gait, it stores gravitational potential energy and converts it into elastic energy through the booster, thereby reducing the metabolic cost of human locomotion. Mechanical and biomechanical evaluations demonstrate that the GA-clutch achieves less than 5% interference and over 85% assistance, indicating that the LFPA-EXO operates within the natural ankle joint range of motion without disrupting normal gait patterns. It delivers a peak assisting moment of 24.56 Nm during normal walking. Notably, it decreases the activation of the soleus muscle while moderately reducing the activation of the gastrocnemius muscle, with minimal impact on the tibialis anterior muscle. The LFPA-EXO achieves a 12.22% reduction in metabolic cost and an 11.17% decrease in average heart rate, underscoring its effectiveness in reducing metabolic cost during walking.

Radio recombination line (RRL) maser is a useful tool to study massive star formation regions with ionised gas close to new born massive stars. Masers often show sharp line profiles and/or extreme narrow widths, and high brightness temperatures. However, RRL masers were rarely detected only in several sources. Here we report the detection of sharp line profiles of the RRL H29$\alpha$, which can be interpreted as maser candidates, in two sources within W49A, a mini-starburst region in our Galaxy. These observations, conducted with high resolution ($\sim0.03''$) using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), reveal high brightness temperatures up to $\sim$9 000 K for H29$\alpha$ emission in another two sources, which might also be regarded as maser candidates. Additionally, suggestions for efficiently identifying RRL maser candidates are also provided.

The properties of warm dense matter are crucial for understanding the physics underlying star formation, stellar evolution and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). We present soft X-ray measurements of a well-isolated warm dense plasma system produced by the collision of high-speed plasma jets in ICF-related experiments with double-cone targets. The colliding plasma was found to exhibit a structure consisting of a hotter inner core and a colder outer shell. The core region emits continuum Planckian radiation with an effective temperature of $45.53\pm 0.44\;\mathrm{eV}$. The outer shell, which has electron density of around ${10}^{23}\;{\mathrm{cm}}^{\hbox{--} 3}$ and temperature of $34.26\pm 2.12\;\mathrm{eV}$, introduces absorption lines of carbon ions superposed on the continuum spectra. Two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic simulations and synthetic X-ray spectral images reveal the detailed physical processes determined with the experimental measurements.

The emergence of large language models, exemplified by ChatGPT, has garnered growing attention for their potential to generate feedback in second language writing, particularly automated written corrective feedback (AWCF). In this study, we examined how prompt design – a generic prompt and two domain-specific prompts (zero-shot and one-shot) enriched with comprehensive domain knowledge about written corrective feedback (WCF) – influences ChatGPT’s ability to provide AWCF. The accuracy and coverage of ChatGPT’s feedback across these three prompts were benchmarked against Grammarly, a widely used traditional automated writing evaluation (AWE) tool. We find that ChatGPT’s ability in flagging language errors grew considerably with prompt sophistication driven by the integration of domain-specific knowledge and examples. While the generic prompt resulted in substantially lower performance than Grammarly, the zero-shot prompt achieved comparable results to it and the one-shot prompt surpassed it considerably in error detection. Notably, the most pronounced improvement in ChatGPT’s performance was observed in its detection of frequent error categories, including those of word choice or expression, direct translation, sentence structure and pronoun. Nonetheless, even with the most sophisticated prompt, ChatGPT still displayed certain limitations when compared to Grammarly. Our study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it lends empirical evidence to Knoth et al.’s (2024) proposition to separate domain-specific AI literacy from generic AI literacy. Practically, it sheds light on the pedagogical application and technical development of AWE systems.

Can social norms give rise to distorted information in China? We observe that China’s leading social norm related to alcohol consumption and social drinking enhances earnings management. An analysis of toxic alcohol scandals supports a causal interpretation. Further evidence suggests that the influence of alcohol may come from the negative externality that it creates, which is propagated by corporate leaders and cannot be attenuated by market-oriented institutions. Our results reveal a social norm externality that may have important normative implications.

Active fluids encompass a wide range of non-equilibrium fluids, in which the self-propulsion or rotation of their units can give rise to large-scale spontaneous flows. Despite the diversity of active fluids, they are commonly viscoelastic. Therefore, we develop a hydrodynamic model of isotropic active liquids by accounting for their viscoelasticity. Specifically, we incorporate an active stress term into a general viscoelastic liquid model to study the spontaneous flow states and their transitions in two-dimensional channel, annulus and disk geometries. We have discovered rich spontaneous flow states in a channel as a function of activity and Weissenberg number, including unidirectional flow, travelling-wave and vortex-roll states. The Weissenberg number acts against activity by suppressing the spontaneous flow. In an annulus confinement, we find that a net flow can be generated only if the aspect ratio of the annulus is not too large nor too small, akin to some three-dimensional active-flow phenomena. In a disk geometry, we observe a periodic chirality switching of a single vortex flow, resembling the bacteria-based active fluid experiments. The two phenomena reproduced in our model differ in Weissenberg number and frictional coefficient. As such, our active viscoelastic model offers a unified framework to elucidate diverse active liquids, uncover their connections and highlight the universality of dynamic active-flow patterns.

An optical spectrometer system based on 60 channels of fibers has been designed and employed to diagnose light emissions from laser–plasma interactions. The 60 fiber collectors cover an integrated solid angle of $\pi$, enabling the measurement of global energy losses in a symmetrical configuration. A detecting spectral range from ultraviolet to near-infrared, with angular distribution, allows for the understanding of the physical mechanisms involving various plasma modes. Experimental measurements of scattered lights from a conical implosion driven by high-energy nanosecond laser beams at the Shenguang-II Upgrade facility have been demonstrated, serving as reliable diagnostics to characterize laser absorption and energy losses from laser–plasma instabilities. This compact diagnostic system can provide comprehensive insights into laser energy coupling in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion research, which are essential for studying the driving asymmetry and improving the implosion efficiencies.

A multifunctional optical diagnostic system, which includes an interferometer, a refractometer and a multi-frame shadowgraph, has been developed at the Shenguang-II upgrade laser facility to characterize underdense plasmas in experiments of the double-cone ignition scheme of inertial confinement fusion. The system employs a 266 nm laser as the probe to minimize the refraction effect and allows for flexible switching among three modes of the interferometer, refractometer and multi-frame shadowgraph. The multifunctional module comprises a pair of beam splitters that attenuate the laser, shield stray light and configure the multi-frame and interferometric modules. By adjusting the distance and angle between the beam splitters, the system can be easily adjusted and switched between the modes. Diagnostic results demonstrate that the interferometer can reconstruct electron density below 1019 cm–3, while the refractometer can diagnose density approximately up to 1020 cm–3. The multi-frame shadowgraph is used to qualitatively characterize the temporal evolution of plasmas in the cases in which the interferometer and refractometer become ineffective.

Prior research on status has focused primarily on the cognitive perspective, exploring the effects of status and offering a limited understanding of the impact of positive status change and its emotional mechanisms. This study draws upon the two-facet model of pride to examine how positive status change influences the behaviors of new status holders. Specifically, we propose that when status differentiation is low, positive status change enhances new status holders' prosocial behavior through their authentic pride, while in cases of high status differentiation, it increases their self-interested behavior through their hubristic pride. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a series of studies, including a laboratory experiment, a scenario experiment, and a time-lagged multilevel and multisource field study. Our multilevel analyses of the data provided strong support for our hypotheses. Our findings shed light on when and why positive status change triggers different behaviors among new status holders, offering important insights into the emotional mechanisms that underlie the effects of status change.

Understanding the genetic basis of porcine mental health (PMH)-related traits in intensive pig farming systems may promote genetic improvement animal welfare enhancement. However, investigations on this topic have been limited to a retrospective focus, and phenotypes have been difficult to elucidate due to an unknown genetic basis. Intensively farmed pigs, such as those of the Duroc, Landrace, and Yorkshire breeds, have undergone prolonged selection pressure in intensive farming systems. This has potentially subjected genes related to mental health in these pigs to positive selection. To identify genes undergoing positive selection under intensive farming conditions, we employed multiple selection signature detection approaches. Specifically, we integrated disease gene annotations from three human gene–disease association databases (Disease, DisGeNET, and MalaCards) to pinpoint genes potentially associated with pig mental health, revealing a total of 254 candidate genes related to PMH. In-depth functional analyses revealed that candidate PMH genes were significantly overrepresented in signaling-related pathways (e.g., the dopaminergic synapse, neuroactive ligand‒receptor interaction, and calcium signaling pathways) or Gene Ontology terms (e.g., dendritic tree and synapse). These candidate PMH genes were expressed at high levels in the porcine brain regions such as the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus, and the cell type in which they were significantly enriched was neurons in the hippocampus. Moreover, they potentially affect pork meat quality traits. Our findings make a significant contribution to elucidating the genetic basis of PMH, facilitating genetic improvements for the welfare of pigs and establishing pigs as valuable animal models for gaining insights into human psychiatric disorders.

In the double-cone ignition scheme of inertial confinement fusion, the head-on collision of two compressed fuel jets from the cone-tips forms an isochoric plasma, which is then heated suddenly by a MeV relativistic electron beam produced by ultra-intense picosecond laser pulses. This fast-heating process was studied experimentally at the Shenguang II upgrade laser facility. By observing temporal-resolved X-ray emission and the spatial-resolved X-ray spectrum, the colliding process and heating process are carefully studied. The colliding plasma was imaged to have dimensions of approximately 86 μm in the implosion direction and approximately 120 μm in the heating direction. By comparing the simulated plasma X-ray spectrum with experimental data, the electron temperature of the heated plasma was found to rapidly increase to 600 ± 50 eV, almost doubling the temperature achieved before the heating laser incidence.

The measurement of X-ray continuous emission from laser-driven plasma was achieved through multiple monochromatic imaging utilizing a multilayer mirror array. This methodology was exemplified by the development of an eight-channel X-ray imaging system, capable of operating in the energy range of several keV with a spatial resolution of approximately 3 μm. By integrating this system with a streak camera, the temperature and trajectory of imploding capsules were successfully measured at the kJ-class Shenguang III prototype laser facility. This approach provides a synchronous diagnostic method for the spatial, temporal and spectral analysis of laser-driven plasma, characterized by its high efficiency and resolution.

Double-cone ignition [Zhang et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 378, 20200015 (2020)] was proposed recently as a novel path for direct-drive inertial confinement fusion using high-power lasers. In this scheme, plasma jets with both high density and high velocity are required for collisions. Here we report preliminary experimental results obtained at the Shenguang-II upgrade laser facility, employing a CHCl shell in a gold cone irradiated with a two-ramp laser pulse. The CHCl shell was pre-compressed by the first laser ramp to a density of 3.75 g/cm3 along the isentropic path. Subsequently, the target was further compressed and accelerated by the second laser ramp in the cone. According to the simulations, the plasma jet reached a density of up to 15 g/cm3, while measurements indicated a velocity of 126.8 ± 17.1 km/s. The good agreements between experimental data and simulations are documented.