Japanese/English Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Exploration of Query Translation and Transliteration

Cross-language information retrieval (CLIR), where queries and documents are in different languages, has of late become one of the major topics within the information retrieval community. This paper proposes a Japanese/English CLIR system, where we combine a query translation and retrieval modules. We currently target the retrieval of technical documents, and therefore the performance of our system is highly dependent on the quality of the translation of technical terms. However, the technical term translation is still problematic in that technical terms are often compound words, and thus new terms are progressively created by combining existing base words. In addition, Japanese often represents loanwords based on its special phonogram. Consequently, existing dictionaries find it difficult to achieve sufficient coverage. To counter the first problem, we produce a Japanese/English dictionary for base words, and translate compound words on a word-by-word basis. We also use a probabilistic method to resolve translation ambiguity. For the second problem, we use a transliteration method, which corresponds words unlisted in the base word dictionary to their phonetic equivalents in the target language. We evaluate our system using a test collection for CLIR, and show that both the compound word translation and transliteration methods improve the system performance

Generalized Second-Order Thomas-Fermi Method for Superfluid Fermi Systems

Using the $\hbar$-expansion of the Green's function of the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov equation, we extend the second-order Thomas-Fermi approximation to generalized superfluid Fermi systems by including the density-dependent effective mass and the spin-orbit potential. We first implement and examine the full correction terms over different energy intervals of the quasiparticle spectra in calculations of finite nuclei. Final applications of this generalized Thomas-Fermi method are intended for various inhomogeneous superfluid Fermi systems.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, PR

Strangeon Stars

Stable micro-nucleus is 2-flavored (u and d), whereas stable macro-nucleus could be 3-flavored (u, d and s) if the light flavor symmetry restores there. Nucleons are the constituent of a nucleus, while strangeons are named as the constituent of 3-flavored baryonic matter. Gravity-compressed baryonic object created after core-collapse supernova could be strangeon star if the energy scale (~0.5 GeV) cannot be high enough for quark deconfinement and if there occurs 3-flavor symmetry restoration. Strangeon stars are explained here, including their formation and manifestation/identification. Much work, coupled with effective {micro-model} of strangeon matter, is needed to take advantage of the unique opportunities advanced facilities will provide.Comment: submitted to Proceedings of QCS2017, 20-22 Feb 2017, YITP, Japa

Geographic features of zero-emissions urban mobility: the case of electric buses in Europe and Belarus

This article reviews the emerging phenomena of electric buses’ deployment in Europe and Belarus within the general framework of the concept of sustainable and electric urban mobility. The author offers a brief overview of electric bus technologies available on the market and a spatial analysis of fleet deployment in Europe. The analysis of the spatial structure of the distribution of e-buses in Europe indicated that, in terms of the number of vehicles in operation, the UK and the Netherlands are the regional leaders, while in terms of the number of cities testing e-buses – Germany, Sweden, and Poland are the leaders. The analysis showed that the main factors supporting the distribution of innovative technology and public support are legislative and regulative framework as well as clear strategic planning and cooperation between local administrations and transportation authorities. Other important aspects, such as network building features, and the location of the charging infrastructure were also discussed. The analysis of the case study of Minsk (the first city to introduce electric buses in Belarus) outlined the typical limiting factors for all types of markets: high battery costs and dependency on infrastructure; recommendations are given to emphasise bus fleet replacement (instead of trolleybus) and to develop a comprehensive sustainable urban mobility strategy

Influence of social networks on communication and culture

Má bakalářská práce je zaměřena na problematiku sociálních sítí a jejich vliv na dnešní společnost. Zabývá se jejich historií od prvotních pokusů až po nejnovější globální sociání sítě. Poté práce vysvětluje základní myšlenku vedoucí k vytvoření sociálních sítí i jejich charakteristické znaky. Dále nastiňuje problémy související se snadnou dostupností a nadměrným využíváním sociálních sítí, které následně ovlivňuje lidskou společnost. Práce se věnuje vlivu sociálních sítí na jazyk, mezilidskou komunikaci a kulturní adaptaci.My bachelor thesis is focused on issues with social networking services and their influence on modern society. It addresses their history from the very first attempts to create a social networking service to the modern global ones. Later the thesis provides an explanation of the creation of a social networking service and its characteristic traits. Furthermore it outlines problems connected with the availability and overuse of social networking services that are subsequently influencing the human society. The thesis also analyzes the influence of social networks on language, interpersonal communication and cultural adaptation.

Mini-review on QCD spectral sum rules

Taking the example of the most popular and well-established Borel / Laplace / Exponential sum rule (LSR), I shortly review some of its recent applications in hadron physics namely the estimates of non-perturbative condensates, the determination of the light and heavy quark masses, the extraction of the heavy-light decay constants, the estimates of charmonium and bottomium molecule masses and the properties of scalar gluonium. In addition to the standard \tau (sum rule variable) and t_c (QCD continuum threshold) stablity criteria, I introduce a new stability criterion versus the arbitrary QCD subtraction point \mu for extracting the optimal results when radiative QCD corrections are included. Future improvements on further uses of QCD spectral sum rules (QSSR) are commented.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, Mini-review talk given at the 17th International Conference on Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD 14) (29 june - 3 july 2014, Montpellier-France), to appear in Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.). Some typos corrected. References update