Attraction behaviour of Anagrus nilaparvatae to remote lemongrass (Cymbopogon distans) oil and its volatile compounds

Utilisation of Anagrus nilaparvatae is a promising and effective method for planthoppers manipulation. Twenty-seven components of remote lemongrass (Cymbopogon distans) oil were identified by GC/MS and nine volatiles were selected for behavioural experiments. In this study, we noted that the remote lemongrass oil was attractive to female A. nilaparvatae at concentrations of 0.1 and 1 mg/L. α-Pinene, β-pinene, eucalyptol, carveol and D-carvone attracted female wasps in the dose-dependent bioassays. Blend 1 (a mixture of eucalyptol, D-carvone, carveol, α-pinene, and β-pinene with ratios of remote lemongrass oil volatiles of 625:80:11:5:3) attracted female wasps at 10 mg/L, while blend 2 (a mixture of the same five volatiles at the same loading ratio) attracted them at 0.1 and 1 mg/L. These results suggested that plant essential oils could be attractants for natural enemies to control pests. The ratios of volatiles in the mixtures affect the attractiveness of the synthetic mixtures.     

Hierarchical and probabilistic quantum state sharing via a non-maximally entangled stateHierarchical and probabilistic quantum state sharing via a non-maximally entangled stateHierarchical and probabilistic quantum state sharing via a non-maximally entangled state

A scheme that probabilistically realizes hierarchical quantum state sharing of an arbitrary unknown qubit state with a four-qubit non-maximally entangled 丨X） state is presented in this paper. In the scheme, the sender Alice distributes a quantum secret with a Bell-state measurement and publishes her measurement outcomes via a classical channel to three agents who are divided into two grades. One agent is in the upper grade, while the other two agents are in the lower grade. Then by introducing an ancillary qubit, the agent of the upper grade only needs the assistance of any one of the other two agents for probabilistically obtaining the secret, while an agent of the lower grade needs the help of both the other two agents by using a controlled-NOT operation and a proper positive operator-valued measurement instead of the usual projective measurement. In other words, the agents of two different grades have different authorities to reconstruct Alice＇s secret in a probabilistic manner. The scheme can also be modified to implement the threshold-controlled teleportation.     

A limiting distribution for maxima of discrete stationary triangular arrays with an application to risk due to avalanches

In this paper, we generalize earlier work dealing with maxima of discrete random variables. We show that row-wise stationary block maxima of a triangular array of integer valued random variables converge to a Gumbel extreme value distribution if row-wise variances grow sufficiently fast as the row-size increases. As a by-product, we derive analytical expressions of normalising constants for most classical unbounded discrete distributions. A brief simulation illustrates our theoretical result. Also, we highlight its usefulness in practice with a real risk assessment problem, namely the evaluation of extreme avalanche occurrence numbers in the French Alps.     

On Quantized Decomposition Maps for Graded Algebras

Decomposition maps control the representation theory of algebras obtained through the process of specialization. In this note, we study a factorization result for graded decomposition maps associated with the specializations of graded algebras. We obtain results previously known only in the ungraded setting.     

Vinyl nosylates as partner in copper and silver co-catalyzed Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions

Vinyl nosylates, readily obtained from β-dicarbonyl derivatives, could be efficiently engaged in Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions, either cocatalyzed by copper or silver salts. The para-nitrobenzenesulfonate (nosylate) group allows this coupling to be performed under very mild conditions (room temperature). These new leaving group and mild conditions could be applied to the synthesis of acetylenic coumarinyl derivatives and to the total synthesis of an acetylenic monoterpene natural product, named cleviolide.