Early-stage star forming cloud cores in GLIMPSE Extended Green Objects (EGOs) as traced by organic species

In order to investigate the physical and chemical properties of massive star forming cores in early stages, we analyse the excitation and abundance of four organic species, CH3OH, CH3OCH3, HCOOCH3 and CH3CH2CN, toward 29 Extended Green Object (EGO) cloud cores that were observed by our previous single dish spectral line survey. The EGO cloud cores are found to have similar methanol J_3-J_2 rotation temperatures of ~44 K, a typical linear size of ~0.036 pc, and a typical beam averaged methanol abundance of several 10^(-9) (the beam corrected value could reach several 10^(-7)). The abundances of the latter three species, normalized by that of methanol, are found to be correlated also across a large variety of clouds such as EGO cloud cores, hot corinos, massive hot cores and Galactic Center clouds. The chemical properties of the EGO cloud cores lie between that of hot cores and hot corinos. However, the abundances and abundance ratios of the four species can not be satisfactorily explained by recent chemical models either among the EGO cloud cores or among the various types of cloud cores from literature

MATREX: the DCU MT system for WMT 2009

In this paper, we describe the machine translation system in the evaluation campaign of the Fourth Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation at EACL 2009. We describe the modular design of our multi-engine MT system with particular focus on the components used in this participation. We participated in the translation task for the following translation directions: French–English and English–French, in which we employed our multi-engine architecture to translate. We also participated in the system combination task which was carried out by the MBR decoder and Confusion Network decoder. We report results on the provided development and test sets

The DCU dependency-based metric in WMT-MetricsMATR 2010

We describe DCU’s LFG dependencybased metric submitted to the shared evaluation task of WMT-MetricsMATR 2010. The metric is built on the LFG F-structurebased approach presented in (Owczarzak et al., 2007). We explore the following improvements on the original metric: 1) we replace the in-house LFG parser with an open source dependency parser that directly parses strings into LFG dependencies; 2) we add a stemming module and unigram paraphrases to strengthen the aligner; 3) we introduce a chunk penalty following the practice of METEOR to reward continuous matches; and 4) we introduce and tune parameters to maximize the correlation with human judgement. Experiments show that these enhancements improve the dependency-based metric's correlation with human judgement

The picture of the world in the novel by Yu. Polyakov “Sovchildhood”

The work is devoted to the analysis of the artistic picture of the world captured in Yu. Polyakov's novel “Sovchildhood.” The purpose of the study is to reveal the principles of the creation by Yu. Polyakov of the model of the USSR world of the 1960s. The descriptive method and component analysis were used. The author concluded that the subject of the description of Yu. Polyakov in the novel “Sovchildhood” is not limited to the memories and life vicissitudes of the protagonist. The writer also reproduces social relations between people: relations between relatives, neighbors and colleagues, the attitude of Soviet people to power. If we consider all the works of Yu. Polyakov as a single text, then “Sovchildhood,” as a chronologically earlier work, is the key to understanding other works of the writer, since in that novel the writer explains the origin of some paradoxical phenomena that will be discussed in other works. In addition to the artistic analysis of the text, the historical value of the novel, in which the author offers readers a more neutral point of view regarding the Soviet Union, is discussed

Vehicle Dispatching and Routing of On-Demand Intercity Ride-Pooling Services: A Multi-Agent Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning Approach

The integrated development of city clusters has given rise to an increasing demand for intercity travel. Intercity ride-pooling service exhibits considerable potential in upgrading traditional intercity bus services by implementing demand-responsive enhancements. Nevertheless, its online operations suffer the inherent complexities due to the coupling of vehicle resource allocation among cities and pooled-ride vehicle routing. To tackle these challenges, this study proposes a two-level framework designed to facilitate online fleet management. Specifically, a novel multi-agent feudal reinforcement learning model is proposed at the upper level of the framework to cooperatively assign idle vehicles to different intercity lines, while the lower level updates the routes of vehicles using an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic. Numerical studies based on the realistic dataset of Xiamen and its surrounding cities in China show that the proposed framework effectively mitigates the supply and demand imbalances, and achieves significant improvement in both the average daily system profit and order fulfillment ratio

Periodic Loop Solutions and Their Limit Forms for the Kudryashov-Sinelshchikov Equation

The Kudryashov-Sinelshchikov equation is studied by using the bifurcation method of dynamical systems and the method of phase portraits analysis. We show that the limit forms of periodic loop solutions contain loop soliton solutions, smooth periodic wave solutions, and periodic cusp wave solutions. Also, some new exact travelling wave solutions are presented through some special phase orbits

Optimization of isolation and purification of total flavonoids from Ardisia mamillata Hance roots using macroporous resins, and determination of their antioxidant activity

Purpose: To isolate, purify and determine the antioxidant property of total flavonoids from the roots of Ardisia mamillata, so as to provide a  theoretical basis for development of natural antioxidants.Methods: Macroporous resin was used to optimize the isolation and  purification of total flavonoids, taking adsorption rate and resolution rate as evaluation indices. The antioxidant property of the purified total flavonoids was determined using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-(2,4,6- trinitrophenyl)hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity.Results: The best conditions for separation and purification of total  flavonoids from Ardisia mamillata roots were: use of ADS-7 resin, loading total flavonoid concentration of 0.8896 mg/mL, loading buffer flow rate of 1.5 mL/min, loading buffer pH of 4.48, elution ethanol concentration of 60 %, and flow rate of 2.5 mL/min. Under these conditions, the degree of purification of total flavonoids of Ardisia mamillata root was 76.43 ± 0.36 %, adsorption rate was 96.52 ± 0.19 %, while resolution rate was 99.31 ± 0.27 %. When the concentration of the purified total flavonoids was 4.0 mg/mL, its DPPH radical scavenging activity was stronger than that of the standard, butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), but lower than that of vitamin C.Conclusion: ADS-7 resin is the best macroporous resin for the purification of total flavonoids from the radix of Ardisia mamillata Hance, under the  optimized conditions. The purified total flavonoids of Ardisia mamillata root have stronger DPPH radical scavenging ability than the standard, BHT.Keywords: Szechwan raspberry root, Flavonoids, Macroporous adsorption resin, ADS-7 resin, Purification, Antioxidan

Chemical components of volatile oil from Cinnamomum jensenianum Hand Mazz leaf in Yongzhou, and its antibacterial and antioxidant properties

Purpose: To study the chemical components, and in vitro antibacterial and antioxidant properties of volatile oil extracted from Yongzhou Cinnamomum jensenianum Hand. Mazz leaves.Methods: The extraction process of volatile oil in the leaves of Yongzhou Cinnamomum jensenianum Hand. Mazz was optimized with respect to volatile oil yield, and the oil was subjected to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. In vitro antimicrobial activities against bacteria and fungi were evaluated by the filter paper method, while in vitro antioxidant potential was determined by assaying its ability to scavenge DPPH radicals.Results: The optimized extraction conditions for volatile oil from the leaves of Yongzhou Cinnamomum jensenianum Hand. Mazz were 3.5 h extraction time, solid-liquid ratio of 1:10, and soaking time of 4 h, which resulted in volatile oil yield of 2.4 ± 0.19 %. A total of 37 components were isolated and identified, accounting for 99.19 % of the volatile oil. The in vitro antimicrobial activities against bacteria and fungi were significant, with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) between 10 and 20 uL. At a volatile oil concentration of 0.09 mg/mL, the DPPH scavenging ability of the oil was stronger than that of BHT.Conclusion: There is a high level of extractability of volatile oil from the leaves of Yongzhou Cinnamomum jensenianum Hand. Mazz. The main component is linalool (94.45 %), and it has good antibacterial and antioxidant properties.Keywords: Yongzhou Cinnamomum jensenianum Hand. Mazz, Volatile oil, Antibacterial, Antioxidan

Process optimization and insecticidal activity of alkaloids from the root bark of Catalpa ovata G. Don by response surface methodology

Purpose: To optimize the extraction of total alkaloids from the root bark of Catalpa ovata using response surface methodology, and to determine the insecticidal activity of the total alkaloids extracted. Methods: A combination of Box-Behnken design and response surface methodology  (RSM) was used to optimize the acid water extraction of total alkaloids from the root bark of Catalpa ovata, with extraction rate of total alkaloids as index and the single factor experiment as basis, and the extraction time, material: liquid ratio and pH as 3 factors. The insecticidal activity of total alkaloids was determined against the three instar armyworm Mythimna separata (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and  diamondback moth Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae).Results: The optimum extraction conditions for total alkaloids were: material: liquid ratio of 1:10; extraction time of 3 h, pH of 1.0, and simmering. Under these  conditions, total alkaloid extraction was 8.62 %, which was very close to the experimental value. The results were accurate and reliable, with reference value. The insecticidal activity of the total alkaloids indicate that when the concentration of the total alkaloids was 10 mg/L, the fatality rate of Plutella xyllostella and oriental armyworm was over 89 %, but the insecticidal activity of the total alkaloids was lower than that of avermectin which was employed as a reference.Conclusion: The alkaloids from the root bark of Catalpa ovata are potential botanical insecticides.Keywords: Catalpa ovata, Root bark, Total alkaloids, Response surface  methodology, Insecticidal activit