“Embedded courts” explains how Chinese courts operate within the system of local bureaucratic organisation, raising concerns about how judges balance adjudicative functions with the expectations of local governance. Using 47,641 first-instance trademark judgments (2014–2021), we empirically examine adjudication in embedded courts and observe the following phenomenon: non-local plaintiffs are more likely to win but receive lower compensation; corporate defendants win more often yet face higher damages when they lose. Regional heterogeneity indicates that some courts exhibit lower support rates for local plaintiffs and well-known trademark holders. These findings reveal the strategic logic underlying local bureaucratic organisation. We develop a Judicial Behavior Index (JBI) and analyse Henan Province. The results suggest courts act as institutional actors responding to local governance incentives. By exercising discretion strategically, courts navigate local governance logics within the legal framework.

This study tested the effects of soil amendment with orange peel powder (Citrus sinensis L.) on Brassica rapa growth, the performance of the aphid Myzus persicae Sulzer, and the foraging behaviour of its parasitoid Aphidius gifuensis Ashmead. Three peel: soil ratios (1:10, 1:15, 1:20 w/w) were compared with an unamended control. The 1:10 amendment significantly reduced seed germination, plant height, leaf size, and fresh weight, while the 1:20 amendment also decreased fresh weight. Aphid nymphal development was significantly delayed in the 1:10 and 1:15 treatments, and adult weight gain was reduced in the 1:15 treatment. Aphid population growth and parasitoid foraging time were unaffected across treatments. The results indicate that orange peel amendments can delay aphid development but also suppress plant growth at higher concentrations, highlighting the need for optimized application rates. This study supports further exploration of orange peel as a sustainable soil amendment in integrated pest management.

Zinc and manganese are essential nutrients for fetal growth and development. Since deficiency of maternal nutrition may lead to preventable adverse pregnancy outcomes, we aimed to examine the association of maternal dietary zinc and manganese levels with low birth weight (LBW). A nested case-control study was conducted in 605 cases and 7497 controls in Lanzhou, China. Eligible participants reported on their diet and characteristics during pregnancy. The relationship between dietary zinc and manganese intake and the risk of LBW was analyzed by unconditioned logistic regression and multivariate adjusted restricted cubic spline (RCS) model. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine the optimal cut-off values of zinc and manganese. The dietary intake below the cut-off value was defined as the low level group, and greater than or equal to the cut-off value was defined as the high level group. Low dietary zinc (< 5.05 mg/d before pregnancy and < 7.36 mg/d during pregnancy) and manganese (< 2.66 mg/d before pregnancy and < 3.41 mg/d during pregnancy) intake was associated with increased risk of LBW and some subtypes. Both zinc and manganese have a nonlinear relationship with the risk of LBW (P<0.001). In addition, there was a synergistic effect of low zinc and low manganese intake on LBW risk. There were separate and interaction effects of zinc and manganese on the occurrence of LBW. Appropriate range of zinc and manganese intake may be beneficial to reduce the risk of LBW.

Oxidative stress is an important pathomechanism in psoriasis, and the Oxidative Balance Score (OBS) serves as a standardized metric for assessing systemic oxidative status, but its association with psoriasis is unclear. This study included 18,023 adults from the NHANES to investigate the relationship between OBS and psoriasis. After using a complex sampling weighting method, we performed multi-model logistic regression and stratified analysis with OBS as the exposure and psoriasis as the outcome for the primary analysis. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) plots were used to evaluate potential nonlinear associations between OBS and psoriasis. In addition, we performed replication analyses using two 24-hour dietary records data as a sensitivity test to ensure robustness of the results. Multi-model logistic regression analyses revealed no statistically meaningful link between OBS and psoriasis prevalence when accounting for all confounders (p>0.05), but in stratified analyses, OBS demonstrated a significant association with reduced risk of psoriasis in individuals aged 60–80 years (OR=0.27-0.35, p<0.05). As part of the overall OBS, moderate dietary OBS (DOBS) demonstrated an association with reduced psoriasis risk in 60-80 year olds (OR=0.39-0.43, p<0.05). Lifestyle OBS (LOBS) indicates a significant negative correlation with psoriasis risk among the “Other Hispanic” group. (Q3 OR=0.23, p<0.05). The RCS showed a non-linear relationship between LOBS and psoriasis (nonlinear P=0.013). This study provides the first systematic confirmation of an association between OBS and a reduced risk of psoriasis in elderly populations and specific ethnic groups. These findings offer new insights and directions for the prevention and treatment of psoriasis.

Existing literature has focused on the influence of organizational settings on volunteers’ intention to remain but failed to explore the effects of external feedback. From an integrated perspective of task design and feedback, this study, based on the affective events theory, explored the influencing mechanism of illegitimate tasks, recipients’ feedback, and emotional exhaustion on volunteers’ intention to remain. This study collected 649 cases from poverty alleviation volunteers. Results showed that illegitimate tasks have had a negative impact on their intention to remain with emotional exhaustion taking a certain mediating effect. It has also been noted that the moderating effect of recipients’ feedback is significant, which can alleviate the negative impact of emotional exhaustion on the intention to remain. This study indicated the positive effects of positive and negative feedback, enriched the research on the influencing factors of volunteers’ intention to remain, and provided suggestions for organizations to retain volunteers from an integrated perspective of task design and feedback.

Charitable assistance from nonprofits and charities plays an important role in helping vulnerable population relieve burdens, but current research provides limited evidence on the factors explaining the receipt of charitable assistance. This study constructs a conceptual framework and empirically tests three groups of factors—from the need, capital, and contextual perspectives—as the antecedents of charitable assistance using data from China. Multilevel logistic regression results show that having needs lays a foundation for charitable assistance, but capital and contextual factors are also important. Higher financial and social capital are associated with higher charitable assistance. Political and social capital strengthen the positive relationship between needs and charitable assistance. Economic development has a positive relationship with charitable assistance, while the relationship between government spending and charitable assistance is negative. This study suggests the inequality of receiving charitable assistance among the disadvantaged groups.

This study systematically evaluates the effects of probiotic interventions on gut microbiota and clinical outcomes in diabetic patients to determine the optimal target population and conditions for effective use, with an emphasis on precision treatment. A comprehensive search was performed across PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), and Wanfang databases until April 2024. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing probiotics as adjunctive therapy for diabetes were included. The control group received standard care, and the intervention group received probiotics alongside standard care. Data were managed with Endnote and Excel, and analyses were conducted using Revman 5.3 and Stata 16. Twelve RCTs involving 1,113 participants were included. Probiotics significantly increased fecal Lactobacillus (standardized mean difference (SMD) 1.42, P < 0.0001, I2 = 95%) and Bifidobacterium levels (SMD 1.27, P < 0.0001, I² = 90%) and reduced fasting plasma glucose (SMD -0.35, P = 0.004). Subgroup analysis showed that shorter intervention durations (≤3 months) improved FPG, HbA1c, and Bifidobacterium levels, while younger patients (≤60 years) experienced the most significant improvements in Bifidobacterium levels. In conclusion, probiotics improve gut microbiota and clinical outcomes in diabetic patients, with intervention duration and patient age as key factors influencing treatment effectiveness.

By deriving the Euler equations and Rankine–Hugoniot equations in the orthogonal frame field of the shock surface, the three-dimensional curved shock theory based on orthogonal frame of shock surface (3D-CST-boos) is established. In steady flow, this theory can be applied to three-dimensional (3-D) shocks without constraints on the incoming flow conditions. The derived equations elucidate the relationship between the first-order gradients of the preshock and postshock flow parameters and the geometric properties (curvature) of the 3-D curved shock. The correctness of 3D-CST-boos is verified for two-dimensional plane shocks and axisymmetric shocks. The analysis is then extended to the flow patterns of 3-D elliptical convex/concave shocks. Variations in the flow field behind a 3-D elliptical convex shock are explained based on different incoming flow conditions. Simultaneously, the fundamental mechanics underlying the differences between the flow fields of elliptical concave shocks and axisymmetric concave shocks are revealed using 3D-CST-boos. Finally, a concise analysis of the first-order flow parameters is presented for more complex 3-D shocks, including saddle-shaped shocks and cubic surface shocks.

Although deep reinforcement learning (DRL) techniques have been extensively studied in the field of robotic manipulators, there is limited research on directly mapping the output of policy functions to the joint space of manipulators. This paper proposes a motion planning scheme for redundant manipulators to avoid obstacles based on DRL, considering the actual shapes of obstacles in the environment. This scheme not only accomplishes the path planning task for the end-effector but also enables autonomous obstacle avoidance while obtaining the joint trajectories of the manipulator. First, a reinforcement learning framework based on the joint space is proposed. This framework uses the joint accelerations of the manipulator to calculate the Cartesian coordinates of the end-effector through forward kinematics, thereby performing end-to-end path planning for the end-effector. Second, the distance between all the linkages of the manipulator and irregular obstacles is calculated in real time based on the Gilbert–Johnson–Keerthi distance algorithm. The reward function containing joint acceleration is constructed with this distance to realize the obstacle avoidance task of the redundant manipulator. Finally, simulations and physical experiments were conducted on a 7-degree-of-freedom manipulator, demonstrating that the proposed scheme can generate efficient and collision-free trajectories in environments with irregular obstacles, effectively avoiding collisions.

Social scientists have quickly adopted large language models (LLMs) for their ability to annotate documents without supervised training, an ability known as zero-shot classification. However, due to their computational demands, cost, and often proprietary nature, these models are frequently at odds with open science standards. This article introduces the Political Domain Enhanced BERT-based Algorithm for Textual Entailment (DEBATE) language models: Foundation models for zero-shot, few-shot, and supervised classification of political documents. As zero-shot classifiers, the models are designed to be used for common, well-defined tasks, such as topic and opinion classification. When used in this context, the DEBATE models are not only as good as state-of-the-art LLMs at zero-shot classification, but are orders of magnitude more efficient and completely open source. We further demonstrate that the models are effective few-shot learners. With a simple random sample of 10–25 documents, they can outperform supervised classifiers trained on hundreds or thousands of documents and state-of-the-art generative models. Additionally, we release the PolNLI dataset used to train these models—a corpus of over 200,000 political documents with highly accurate labels across over 800 classification tasks.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious animal disease caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV). It is listed by the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) as an animal disease subject to statutory reporting. ASFV, a large, enveloped double-stranded DNA virus with high genomic complexity, exhibits a case fatality rate of up to 100%, posing a significant threat to the global pig industry and food safety. To date, the absence of a safe commercial ASFV vaccine primarily stems from challenges in identifying immunogenic viral antigens, insufficient characterization of ASFV pathogenesis, and limited understanding of the virus’s immune evasion mechanisms. Here, we review the pathogenic characteristics (morphological structure, clinical symptoms, and epidemiological characteristics), molecular biological characteristics, and infection mechanism of ASFV, as well as the immune response mechanism, vaccine research, and the latest information on ASFV in other areas. This review will be in favour of understanding the current state of knowledge of ASF and developing effective vaccines to control this disease.

The traditional ant colony optimisation (ACO) algorithm, when applied to mobile robot path planning, faces several challenges: slow convergence, susceptibility to local optima, and the generation of paths with excessive turning points, all of which reduce the robot’s operational efficiency. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper proposes a targeted set of improvements designed to enhance algorithm performance and increase the practicality and efficiency of path planning. First, we introduce an initial pheromone enhancement mechanism based on the Bresenham algorithm. By augmenting pheromone concentration along the approximate straight-line path from the start to the goal, ants are guided to explore in the optimal direction, thereby significantly accelerating convergence. Second, we integrate a directional continuity factor into the path selection probability: by using vector dot products to strengthen the bias toward consistent directions and by coupling this with a curvature-based pheromone reward that favours straighter segments, we ensure smoother, more direct paths. Finally, we apply a spring-model-based smoothing strategy as a post-processing step to the paths generated by the ant colony, reducing path complexity and the number of turns to guarantee efficient and reliable robot motion. To validate the performance of the improved algorithm, we conduct comparative experiments on a MATLAB platform against other enhanced ACO variants reported in the literature. The results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm significantly outperforms these existing methods across all performance metrics, exhibiting superior path planning capabilities.

Major public health emergencies have intensified, prompting some regions to implement stringent measures aimed at minimizing population movement, as seen in the response to incidents like the SARS outbreak in 2013 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.1 Amidst the emphasis on public health crisis management, ensuring a stable supply of daily essentials like vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, and grains is imperative to maintain a sense of stability and order in daily life.2 The key challenge lies in the scientific and rational distribution of emergency supplies to ensure a consistent supply of various daily essentials within the public health event control area, which is an essential pragmatic concern.

In this article, we provide a specific characterization of invariants of classical Lie superalgebras from the super-analog of the Schur–Weyl duality in a unified way. We establish $\mathfrak {g}$-invariants of the tensor algebra $T(\mathfrak {g})$, the supersymmetric algebra $S(\mathfrak {g})$, and the universal enveloping algebra $\mathrm {U}(\mathfrak {g})$ of a classical Lie superalgebra $\mathfrak {g}$ corresponding to every element in centralizer algebras and their relationship under supersymmetrization. As a byproduct, we prove that the restriction on $T(\mathfrak {g})^{\mathfrak {g}}$ of the projection from $T(\mathfrak {g})$ to $\mathrm {U}(\mathfrak {g})$ is surjective, which enables us to determine the generators of the center $\mathcal {Z}(\mathfrak {g})$ except for $\mathfrak {g}=\mathfrak {osp}_{2m|2n}$. Additionally, we present an alternative algebraic proof of the triviality of $\mathcal {Z}(\mathfrak {p}_n)$. The key ingredient involves a technique lemma related to the symmetric group and Brauer diagrams.

Over recent decades, we find about $80\%$ of widening residual wage inequality to be within jobs (industry-occupation pairs). To explore the underlying drivers, we incorporate into a sorting equilibrium framework with two extensive margin channels (across-job sorting and within-job selection of a performance-pay position) and an intensive margin channel (quality of skill match), in addition to residual job productivity. We show that equilibrium sorting is positively assortative both within and across jobs. By calibrating the model to the United States in 1990 and 2000, we find the improved match quality and rising performance-pay incidence amplify each other, jointly accounting for about $90\%$ of the widening within-job wage inequality. Match quality and performance pay are particularly important in jobs with rising average wages and expansionary employment. Once performance pay and match quality channels are incorporated, job sorting becomes less important and residual job productivity becomes inconsequential throughout.