An ant colony optimization method for generalized TSP problem

Focused on a variation of the euclidean traveling salesman problem (TSP), namely, the generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP), this paper extends the ant colony optimization method from TSP to this field. By considering the group influence, an improved method is further improved. To avoid locking into local minima, a mutation process and a local searching technique are also introduced into this method. Numerical results show that the proposed method can deal with the GTSP problems fairly well, and the developed mutation process and local search technique are effective

Medicinal plants used by Tibetans in Shangri-la, Yunnan, China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Medicinal plants used by the local people in Xizang (Tibet) have been investigated since the 1960s. The others out of Xizang, however, have been less understood, although they may be easily and strongly influenced by the various local herbal practices, diverse environments, local religious beliefs and different prevalent types of diseases. In 2006, two ethnobotanical surveys were organized in the county of Shangri-la, Yunnan Province, SW China, to document the traditional medicinal plants used by the Tibetan people.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>After literature surveying, four local townships were selected to carry out the field investigation. Three local healers were interviewed as key informants. The methods of ethnobotany, anthropology and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) were used in the field surveys. Plant taxonomic approach was adopted for voucher specimen identification.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Sixty-eight medicinal plant species in 64 genera of 40 families were recorded and collected. Among them, 23 species were found to have medicinal values that have not been recorded in any existing Tibetan literatures before, and 31 species were recorded to have traditional prescriptions. Moreover, the traditional preparations of each species and some folk medicinal knowledge were recorded and analyzed. These traditional prescriptions, preparations, new medicinal plants and folk medicinal knowledge and principles were discovered and summarized by local traditional Tibetan healers through times of treatment practices, and were passed down from generation to generation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>As a part of the cultural diversity of Tibetan community, these traditional medicinal knowledge and experiences may provide data and information basis for the sustainable utilization and development of Tibetan medicine, and may contribute to the local economic development. However, for many reasons, they are disappearing gradually as time goes by. Our study showed that there were abundant traditional Tibetan medicinal prescriptions and using methods. It implies that more Tibetan medicinal plants and traditional knowledge can be discovered. Further research should be done to save the wealth of these traditional medicinal knowledge and experiences before they are dying out.</p

10-Benzyl-10H-phenothia­zine 9-oxide. Corrigendum

Corrigendum to Acta Cryst. (2009), E65, o1799

CLIP Brings Better Features to Visual Aesthetics Learners

The success of pre-training approaches on a variety of downstream tasks has revitalized the field of computer vision. Image aesthetics assessment (IAA) is one of the ideal application scenarios for such methods due to subjective and expensive labeling procedure. In this work, an unified and flexible two-phase \textbf{C}LIP-based \textbf{S}emi-supervised \textbf{K}nowledge \textbf{D}istillation paradigm is proposed, namely \textbf{\textit{CSKD}}. Specifically, we first integrate and leverage a multi-source unlabeled dataset to align rich features between a given visual encoder and an off-the-shelf CLIP image encoder via feature alignment loss. Notably, the given visual encoder is not limited by size or structure and, once well-trained, it can seamlessly serve as a better visual aesthetic learner for both student and teacher. In the second phase, the unlabeled data is also utilized in semi-supervised IAA learning to further boost student model performance when applied in latency-sensitive production scenarios. By analyzing the attention distance and entropy before and after feature alignment, we notice an alleviation of feature collapse issue, which in turn showcase the necessity of feature alignment instead of training directly based on CLIP image encoder. Extensive experiments indicate the superiority of CSKD, which achieves state-of-the-art performance on multiple widely used IAA benchmarks

Mutation rate analysis via parent- progeny sequencing of the perennial peach. II. No evidence for recombination associated mutation

Mutation rates and recombination rates vary between species and between regions within a genome. What are the determinants of these forms of variation? Prior evidence has suggested that the recombination might be mutagenic with an excess of new mutations in the vicinity of recombination break points. As it is conjectured that domesticated taxa have higher recombination rates than wild ones, we expect domesticated taxa to have raised mutation rates. Here, we use parent-offspring sequencing in domesticated and wild peach to ask (i) whether recombination is mutagenic, and (ii) whether domesticated peach has a higher recombination rate than wild peach. We find no evidence that domesticated peach has an increased recombination rate, nor an increased mutation rate near recombination events. If recombination is mutagenic in this taxa, the effect is too weak to be detected by our analysis. While an absence of recombination-associated mutation might explain an absence of a recombination-heterozygozity correlation in peach, we caution against such an interpretation.</p

10-Benzyl-10H-phenothia­zine 9-oxide

In the title compound, C19H15NOS, the butterfly angle between the mean planes defined by the S, N and phenyl C atoms of the two wings of the phenothiazine unit is 23.4 (1)°. In the crystal, a supra­molecular two-dimensional arrangement arises from weak inter­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions

2-[7-Chloro-1,1-dioxo-2-(2,4,5-trifluoro­benz­yl)-3,4-dihydro-2H-1,2,4-benzothia­diazin-4-yl]acetic acid

In the mol­ecule of the title compound, C16H12ClF3N2O4S, the thia­diazine ring adopts a half-chair conformation. The dihedral angle between the benzene ring of the benzothia­diazine ring system and trifluoro­phenyl group is 15.02 (7)°. In the crystal, centrosymmetrically related mol­ecules are linked into dimers via pairs of O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, generating R 2 2(8) ring motifs. The dimers are further connected into a three-dimensional network by C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

PO-306 The effect of four weeks hypoxic resistance training on myostatin and follistatin expression in skeletal muscle of rats

Objective Loss of skeletal muscle weight is a common phenomenon in hypoxic environment. It has been recognized that resistance training can reduce hypoxia-induced skeletal muscle atrophy, but its molecular mechanism is still unclear. Myostatin is a major factor that inhibits muscle growth and differentiation, and Follistatin can inhibit Myostatin. Therefore, this study is to clarify the effect of 4-week hypoxic&nbsp;resistance exercise on Myostatin and Follistatin gene expression in skeletal muscle of rats. Methods Twenty&nbsp;four 8-week-old male SD rats were randomly divided into normoxic control&nbsp;group (group C: 6 rats), normoxic exercise group (group R: 6 rats), hypoxic control&nbsp;group (group H: 6 rats) and hypoxic exercise group (group HR: 6 rats). Rats in each hypoxic group were fed in a hypoxic chamber (atmospheric hypoxia) with oxygen concentration of 12.7% (simulated 4000m altitude). Rats in each exercise group were trained according to the rat's resistance training program developed in our&nbsp;laboratory. After all the intervention, DEXA was used to analyze the body composition. The soleus, extensor digitorum longus and biceps brachii muscles of rats were taken and the wet weight of individual muscles was measured. The data were processed by SPSS17.0 statistical software. The expression level of skeletal muscle mRNA was expressed as "median (25-75%)" and the data of body composition and muscle wet weight were expressed as"mean±standard deviation". The differences&nbsp;between the groups were evaluated using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. The significance level for the study was less than 0.05. Results Body composition analysis after 4 weeks of hypoxic intervention showed that the body weight of rats in group H decreased significantly (p=0.012), and the muscle mass decreased more significantly (p&lt;0.001). But resistance exercises obviously reduced the muscle atrophy (p&lt;0.01) caused by hypoxia. After analyzing the changes of the wet weight of individual muscles, it was found that the wet weight of biceps brachii in HR group was significantly higher than that in H group (p=0.048). After 4 weeks of hypoxic intervention and hypoxic resistance exercise, the expression of Myostatin mRNA in individual muscles of each group changed differently. The expression of Myostatin mRNA in soleus muscle of H group was significantly higher than that of C group (371.2%) after 4 weeks of hypoxia intervention. Myostatin mRNA expression in soleus and biceps brachii of HR group was significantly lower than that of H group (591.1% and 478.4% respectively). However, there was no significant difference in the expression level of Myostatin mRNA in the extensor digitorum longus between each group&nbsp;(p=0.259). The change of Follistatin mRNA expression in different groups also showed a different trend. The expression of Follistatin mRNA in soleus muscle and biceps brachii muscle was significantly different among groups (p=0.003, p=0.004, respectively). However, there was no significant difference in the expression level of Follistatin mRNA in the extensor digitorum longus between each group&nbsp;(p=0.734). Myostatin mRNA/Follistatin mRNA ratio (M/F) showed a more significant difference. The M/F ratio of soleus muscle in group H was significantly lower than that in group C (p&lt;0.001), but the M/F ratio in group HR was significantly higher than that in group H (p&lt;0.001). The M/F ratio of biceps brachii in group H was significantly lower than that in group C (p&lt;0.001), but the M/F ratio in group HR showed a higher trend&nbsp;than that in group H (p=0.051). Conclusions Hypoxic exposure&nbsp;results in an increase in Myostatin mRNA expression in skeletal muscle, but hypoxic resistance exercise reduces such an increase. On the contrary, the level of Follistatin mRNA expression in skeletal muscle decreased after hypoxic exposure, and hypoxic resistance exercise could slow down the decline. As a result, rat resistance exercise significantly slowed down hypoxia-induced muscle atrophy. In conclusion, the mutual restriction between Myostatin and Follistatin is one of the main links of resistance exercise to reduce&nbsp;hypoxia-induced skeletal muscle atrophy. However, the process of resistance training to reduce&nbsp;the hypoxia-induced skeletal muscle atrophy is very complex. There are many molecular signaling pathways&nbsp;involved, which need further study