A phonological study on English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese

The general opinion about the way English borrowings enter Mandarin is that English words are preferably integrated into Mandarin via calquing, which includes a special case called Phonetic-Semantic Matching (PSM) (Zuckermann 2004), meaning words being phonetically assimilated and semantically transferred at the same time. The reason for that is that Mandarin is written in Chinese characters, which each has a single-syllable pronunciation and a self-contained meaning, and the meaning achieved by the selection of characters may match the original English words. There are some cases which are agreed by many scholars to be PSM. However, as this study demonstrates, the semantics of the borrowing and the original word do not really match, the relation considered to be “artificial” by Novotná (1967). This study analyses a corpus of 600 established English loanwords in Mandarin to test the hypothesis that semantic matching is not a significant factor in the loanword adaptation process because there is no semantic relation between the borrowed words and the characters used to record them. To measure the phonological similarity between the English input and the Mandarin output, one of the models in adult second language perception, the Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best 1995a), is used as the framework to judge the phonemic matching between the English word and the adapted Mandarin outcome. The meanings of the characters used in recording the loanwords are referred in The Dictionary of Modern Chinese to see whether there are cases of semantic matching. The phonotactic adaptation of illicit sound sequences is also analysed in Optimality Theory (McCarthy 2002) to give an account of phonetic-phonological analysis of the adaptation process. Thus, the percentage of Phono-Semantic Matching is obtained in the corpus. As the corpus investigation shows, the loanwords that can match up both the phonological and the semantic quality of the original words are very few. The most commonly acknowledged phono-semantic matching cases are only phonetic loanwords. In conclusion, this paper argues that the semantic resource of Chinese writing system is not used as a major factor in the integration of loanwords. Borrowing between languages with different writing systems is not much different than borrowing between languages with same writing system or without a writing system. Though Chinese writing system interferes with the borrowing, it is the linguistic factors that determine the borrowing process and results. Chinese characters are, by a large proportion, conventional graphic signs with a phonetic value being the more significant factor in loanword integration process

Traffic Control Scheme for Social Optimum Traffic Assignment with Dynamic Route Pricing for Automated Vehicles

In transportation modeling, after defining a road network and its origin-destination (OD) matrix, the next important question is how to assign traffic among OD-pairs. Nowadays, advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) make it possible to realize the user equilibrium solution. Simultaneously, with the advent of the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), it is possible to solve the traffic assignment problem in a system optimum way. As a potential traffic assignment method in the future transportation system for automated cars, the deterministic system optimum (DSO) is modeled and simulated to investigate the potential changes it may bring to the existing traditional traffic system. In this paper, stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) is used to simulate the conventional traffic assignment method. This work concluded that DSO has considerable advantages in reducing trip duration, time loss, waiting time, and departure delay under the same travel demand. What is more, the SUE traffic assignment has a more dispersed vehicle density distribution. Moreover, DSO traffic assignment helps the maximum vehicle density of each alternative path arrive almost simultaneously. Furthermore, DSO can significantly reduce or avoid the occurrence of excessive congestion

The impact of autonomous vehicles on urban traffic network capacity: an experimental analysis by microscopic traffic simulation

Urban commuters have been suffering from traffic congestion for a long time. In order to avoid or mitigate the congestion effect, it is significant to know how the introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs) influence the road capacity. The effects that AVs bring to the macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) were investigated through microscopic traffic simulations. This is a key issue as the MFD is a basic model to describe road capacity in practical traffic engineering. Accordingly, the paper investigates how the different percentage of AVs affects the urban MFD. A detailed simulation study was carried out by using SUMO both with an artificial grid road network and a real-world network in Budapest. On the one hand, simulations clearly show the capacity improvement along with AVs penetration growth. On the other hand, the paper introduces an efficient modeling for MFDs with different AVs rates by using the generalized additive model (GAM)

Tetra­kis[μ-2-(3,4-dimeth­oxy­phen­yl)acetato]-κ3 O 1,O 1′:O 1;κ3 O 1:O 1,O 1′;κ4 O 1:O 1′-bis­{[2-(3,4-dimeth­oxy­phen­yl)acetato-κ2 O 1,O 1′](1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)erbium(III)}

In the dimeric centrosymmetric title complex, [Er2(C10H11O4)6(C12H8N2)2], the ErIII ion is nine-coordinated by five 2-(3,4-dimeth­oxy­lphen­yl)acetic acid (DMPA) ligands via seven O atoms and two N atoms from a bis-chelating 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) ligand in a distorted tricapped trigonal-prismatic geometry. The DMPA ligands are coordinated to the ErIII ion in bis-chelate, bridging and bridging tridentate modes. Relatively weak intra­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions reinforce the stability of the mol­ecular structure. Inter­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions are also observed

Tetra­kis[μ-2-(3,4-dimeth­oxy­phen­yl)acetato]-κ4 O:O′;κ3 O,O′:O;κ3 O:O,O′-bis­{[2-(3,4-dimeth­oxy­phen­yl)acetato-κ2 O,O′](1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)samarium(III)}

In the centrosymmetric dinuclear title complex, [Sm2(C10H11O4)6(C12H8N2)2], the SmIII ion is nine-coordinated by seven O atoms of five 2-(3,4-dimeth­oxy­phen­yl)acetate (DMPA) ligands and two N atoms of one bis-chelating 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) ligand, forming a distorted tricapped trigonal-prismatic environment. The DMPA ligands coordinate in bis-chelate, bridging and bridging tridentate modes. An intra­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bond occurs. Inter­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions are also present in the crystal

The correlation between the expression of differentiated embryo-chondrocyte expressed gene l and oral squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: This study aims to explore the correlation between expression of differentiated embryo-chondrocyte expressed gene l (DEC1) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), which could provide the reference for treatment and prognosis assessment of OSCC. METHODS: The expression of DEC1 in tissues from 56 primary OSCC patients and 20 normal oral mucosa samples were detected using real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical methods, respectively. RESULTS: The results showed that the positive expression rate of DEC1 in the OSCC group was significantly higher than that in the normal group (P <0.05); further, the expression of DEC1 in different OSCC groups was statistically significant (P <0.05). The expression of DEC1 in the 1-year recurrence OSCC group was significantly higher than other groups. The expression of DEC1 in the 3-years no recurrence OSCC group was the lowest. CONCLUSIONS: The expression of DEC1 was associated with the incidence of OSCC and there was a negative correlation between the expression of DEC1 and the prognosis of OSCC