The lagged relationship between Kara–Barents sea ice and summer precipitation in eastern China is evaluated for Chinese models participating in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). A previous study revealed a dipole rainfall structure in eastern China related to winter Arctic sea ice variability. Almost all Chinese CMIP6 models reproduce the variability and climatology of the sea ice in most of the Arctic well except the transition regions with evident biases. Further, all Chinese CMIP6 models successfully simulate the decreasing trend for the Kara–Barents sea ice. The dipole centers located in the Yangtze–Huai River Valley (YHRV) and South China (SC) related to Kara–Barents sea ice variability are simulated with different degrees of success. The anomalous dipole rainfall structure related to the winter Kara–Barents sea ice variability can roughly be reproduced by two models, while other models reproduce a shifted rainfall anomaly pattern or with the sign reversed. The possible delayed influence of sea ice forcing on early summer precipitation in China is established via three possible processes: the long memory of ice, the long-lasting stratospheric anomalies triggered by winter sea ice forcing, and the downward impact of the stratosphere as the mediator. Most Chinese models can simulate the negative Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode (NAM) phase in early winter but fail to reproduce the reversal of the stratospheric anomalies to a positive NAM pattern in spring and early summer. Most models underestimate the downward impact from the stratosphere to the troposphere. This implies that the stratospheric pathway is essential to mediate the winter sea ice forcing and rainfall in early summer over China for CMIP6 models.
Bioinspired Continuum Robots In article number 2201616, Ji Liu, Haijun Peng, Jianing Wu, and co-workers present a three-segment continuum robot constructed by a class-3 tensegrity structure, inspired by the mechanism of an elephant trunk for regulating local stiffness. It relies on a stiffness tunable material to achieve the robotic stiffness programmable characteristics. This study may provide a foundation for the potential application of continuum robots for interacting with unstructured environments.
A hexagon-shaped floating unit (HS-FU) was proposed, and the optimisation was performed with respect to the geometric dimension based on the response surface method (RSM). A multi-objective optimisation model considering the weight and heave response was established to achieve a satisfactory balance between economy and safety, constrained by the roll, initial metacentric height, freeboard, and collision issue. The results show that, opposite to the heave response, the structural weight is positively proportional to the side lengths of the water tank and living area; the stability can be improved by increasing the water tank height and the living area side length. The combination of weighting factors with a value of 0.4 for weight and 0.6 for heave was selected as one of the optimal designs. Compared with the initial design, the optimal design shows better performance, with the heave response decreasing by 22.51% and the initial metacentric height increasing by 28.30%.
In this paper, we design a one-dimensional anti- PT -symmetric ring optical waveguide network (1D APTSPROWN). Using the three-material network equation and the generalized Floquet–Bloch theorem, we investigate its photonic mode distribution, and observe weak extremum spontaneous anti- PT -symmetric breaking points (WBPs) and strong extremum spontaneous anti- PT -symmetric breaking points (SBPs). Then the transmission spectrum is obtained by using the three-material network equation and the generalized eigenfunction method. The 1D APTSPROWN is found to generate ultra-strong transmission near SBPs and ultra-weak transmission near WBPs and SBPs, with the maximal and minimal transmissions being 4.08× 10 12 and 7.08× 10 −52 , respectively. The maximal transmission has the same order of magnitude as the best-reported result. It is not only because the distribution of photonic modes generated by the 1D APTSROWN results in the coupling resonance and anti-resonance, but also because the 1D APTSROWN composed of materials whose real parts of refractive indices are positive and negative has two kinds of phase effects, which results in the resonance and anti-resonance effects in the same kind of photonic modes. This demonstrates that the anti- PT -symmetric and PT -symmetric optical waveguide networks are quite different, which leads to a more in-depth understanding of anti- PT -symmetric and PT -symmetric structures. This work has the potential for paving a new approach to designing single photon emitters, optical amplifiers, and high-efficiency optical energy saver devices.
To mitigate the spread of fake news, researchers need to understand who visit fake new sites, what brings people to those sites, where visitors come from, and what content they prefer to consume. In this paper, we analyze web traffic data from The Gateway Pundit (TGP), a popular far-right website that is known for repeatedly sharing false information that has made its web traffic available to the general public. We collect data on 68 million web traffic visits to the site over a month period and analyze how people consume news via multiple features. Our traffic analysis shows that search engines and social media platforms are main drivers of traffic; our geo-location analysis reveals that TGP is more popular in counties that voted for Trump in 2020; and our topic analysis shows that conspiratorial articles receive more visits than factual articles. Due to the inability to observe direct website traffic, existing research uses alternative data source such as engagement signals from social media posts. To validate if social media engagement signals correlate with actual web visit counts, we collect all Facebook and Twitter posts with URLs from TGP during the same time period. We show that all engagement signals positively correlate with web visit counts, but with varying correlation strengths. Metrics based on Facebook posts correlate better than metrics based on Twitter. Our unique web traffic data set and insights can help researchers to better measure the impact of far-right and fake news URLs on social media platforms.
This study investigates the attenuating effects of butyrate glycerides (BG) on intestinal inflammatory responses and barrier dysfunction induced by LPS stimulation. An initial dose-response test was carried out to identify the optimal dose of BG for further testing. The mice were given intragastric administration of BG at different doses followed by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) intraperitoneal injection. The small intestinal morphology and cytokine mRNA expression were measured. With 1.5 g/kg BW BG administration, it was possible to alleviate the injury of duodenal morphology, attenuate ileum villus height reduction and promote IL-10 mRNA expression. Therefore, the optimal dosage of 1.5 g/kg BW BG was selected for the main experiment. The ultrastructure image of jejunum and ileum epithelial cells, mRNA expression, the level of cytokine and immunofluorescence in the ileum were analyzed. The results showed that BG maintain the ileac brush border, tight junction structures and protein expression. BG attenuated the increased inflammatory cytokines, TLR4 and JNK mRNA expression. Taken together, 1.5 g/kg BW BG administration maintained intestinal barrier function and reduced intestinal and body inflammation responses induced by LPS in mice. The mechanism by which BG alleviated intestinal inflammatory response and maintained intestinal barrier function may be related to the JNK signaling pathway.
Abstract Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are widely exploited in all‐dielectric metasurfaces to significantly enhance the Q‐factor and second harmonic generation (SHG). However, a higher SHG conversion efficiency is overshadowed by the narrow transparency window of all‐dielectric materials and strict requirement of polarization‐matching. Herein, an augmented SHG assisted is demonstrated by symmetry‐protected quasi‐BICs from z ‐cut wurtzite GaN metasurfaces, whose wide transparent range suppresses self‐absorption of second harmonic. Strong resonances emerge under both X‐ and Y‐polarized excitations, where the multipole characters of each eigenmode are quantitatively identified via decomposition simulations. The local field enhancement enabled by the extreme energy confinement of quasi‐BICs contributes to an efficient SHG, recording a conversion efficiency up to 2 × 10 −7 at moderately low input peak intensity (≈1 GW cm −2 ), orders of magnitude larger than bulk GaN. With proper design, the overlapping X‐ and Y‐polarized resonances can support SHG from excitation with arbitrary polarizations. The alleviation of polarization‐matching remarkably enhances the SHG power by 66.2% under unpolarized illumination condition. The results of intense SHG reveal GaN as a promising candidate for high‐performance nanoscale nonlinear photonic devices. The weak polarization sensitivity of the designed structure will chart a novel course for the advancement of next‐generation efficient all‐dielectric metasurfaces.
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