线形脑啡肽(N—Tyr~1—Gly~2—Gly~3—Phe~4—Leu~5)的NMR溶液构象研究

本文在Bruker AM-400 NMR谱仪上,在不同温度下研究了线形脑啡肽(N-Tyr~1-Gly~2-Gly~3-Phe~4-Leu~5)在DMSO中的NMR溶液构象。由NMR测试结果,得到了NH化学位移温度梯度系数、扭转角φ、χ＇约束和~1H-~1H NOE距离约束,用目标函数法计算了脑啡肽的溶液构象,分析了优势边链构象。研究结果指明了多肽骨架的柔变性且处于构象平衡中。

叠前地震数据规则化、重建及噪音压制

I address of reconstruction of spatial irregular sampling seismic data to regular grids. Spatial irregular sampling data impairs results of prestack migration, multiple attenuations, spectra estimation. Prestack 5-D volumes are often divided into sub-sections for further processing. Shot gathers are easy to obtain from irregular sampling volumes. My strategy for reconstruction is as follows: I resort irregular sampling gathers into a form of easy to bin and perform bin regularization, then utilize F-K inversion to reconstruct seismic data. In consideration of poor ability of F-K regularization to fill in large gaps, I sort regular sampling gathers to CMP and proposed high-resolution parabolic Radon transform to interpolate data and extrapolate offsets. To strong interfering noise--multiples, I use hybrid-domain high-resolution parabolic Radon transform to attenuate it. F-K regularization demand ultimately for lower computing costs. I proposed several methods to further improve efficiency of F-K inversion: first I introduce 1D and 2D NFFT algorithm for a rapid calculation of DFT operators; then develop fast 1D and 2D CG method to solve least-square equations, and utilize preconditioner to accelerate convergence of CG iterations; what’s more, I use Delaunay triangulation for weight calculation and use bandlimit frequency and varying bandwidth technique for competitive computation. Numerical 2D and 3D examples are offered to verify reasonable results and more efficiency. F-K regularization has poor ability to fill in large gaps, so I rearrange data as CMP gathers and develop hybrid-domain high-resolution parabolic Radon transforms which be used ether to interpolate null traces and extrapolate near and far offsets or suppress a strong interfere noise: multiples. I use it to attenuate multiples to verify performances of our algorithm and proposed routines for industrial application. Numerical examples and field data examples show a nice performance of our method.

基于波动方程的层间多次波预测方法研究

In exploration geophysics，velocity analysis and migration methods except reverse time migration are based on ray theory or one-way wave-equation. So multiples are regarded as noise and required to be attenuated. It is very important to attenuate multiples for structure imaging, amplitude preserving migration. So it is an interesting research in theory and application about how to predict and attenuate internal multiples effectively. There are two methods based on wave-equation to predict internal multiples for pre-stack data. One is common focus point method. Another is inverse scattering series method. After comparison of the two methods, we found that there are four problems in common focus point method: 1. dependence of velocity model; 2. only internal multiples related to a layer can be predicted every time; 3. computing procedure is complex; 4. it is difficult to apply it in complex media. In order to overcome these problems, we adopt inverse scattering series method. However, inverse scattering series method also has some problems: 1. computing cost is high; 2. it is difficult to predict internal multiples in the far offset; 3. it is not able to predict internal multiples in complex media. Among those problems, high computing cost is the biggest barrier in field seismic processing. So I present 1D and 1.5D improved algorithms for reducing computing time. In addition, I proposed a new algorithm to solve the problem which exists in subtraction, especially for surface related to multiples. The creative results of my research are following: 1. derived an improved inverse scattering series prediction algorithm for 1D. The algorithm has very high computing efficiency. It is faster than old algorithm about twelve times in theory and faster about eighty times for lower spatial complexity in practice; 2. derived an improved inverse scattering series prediction algorithm for 1.5D. The new algorithm changes the computing domain from pseudo-depth wavenumber domain to TX domain for predicting multiples. The improved algorithm demonstrated that the approach has some merits such as higher computing efficiency, feasibility to many kinds of geometries, lower predictive noise and independence to wavelet； 3. proposed a new subtraction algorithm. The new subtraction algorithm is not used to overcome nonorthogonality, but utilize the nonorthogonality's distribution in TX domain to estimate the true wavelet with filtering method. The method has excellent effectiveness in model testing. Improved 1D and 1.5D inverse scattering series algorithms can predict internal multiples. After filtering and subtracting among seismic traces in a window time, internal multiples can be attenuated in some degree. The proposed 1D and 1.5D algorithms have demonstrated that they are effective to the numerical and field data. In addition, the new subtraction algorithm is effective to the complex theoretic models.

基于量子蒙特卡罗的地震波反演方法

The primary approaches for people to understand the inner properties of the earth and the distribution of the mineral resources are mainly coming from surface geology survey and geophysical/geochemical data inversion and interpretation. The purpose of seismic inversion is to extract information of the subsurface stratum geometrical structures and the distribution of material properties from seismic wave which is used for resource prospecting, exploitation and the study for inner structure of the earth and its dynamic process. Although the study of seismic parameter inversion has achieved a lot since 1950s, some problems are still persisting when applying in real data due to their nonlinearity and ill-posedness. Most inversion methods we use to invert geophysical parameters are based on iterative inversion which depends largely on the initial model and constraint conditions. It would be difficult to obtain a believable result when taking into consideration different factors such as environmental and equipment noise that exist in seismic wave excitation, propagation and acquisition. The seismic inversion based on real data is a typical nonlinear problem, which means most of their objective functions are multi-minimum. It makes them formidable to be solved using commonly used methods such as general-linearization and quasi-linearization inversion because of local convergence. Global nonlinear search methods which do not rely heavily on the initial model seem more promising, but the amount of computation required for real data process is unacceptable. In order to solve those problems mentioned above, this paper addresses a kind of global nonlinear inversion method which brings Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method into geophysical inverse problems. QMC has been used as an effective numerical method to study quantum many-body system which is often governed by Schrödinger equation. This method can be categorized into zero temperature method and finite temperature method. This paper is subdivided into four parts. In the first one, we briefly review the theory of QMC method and find out the connections with geophysical nonlinear inversion, and then give the flow chart of the algorithm. In the second part, we apply four QMC inverse methods in 1D wave equation impedance inversion and generally compare their results with convergence rate and accuracy. The feasibility, stability, and anti-noise capacity of the algorithms are also discussed within this chapter. Numerical results demonstrate that it is possible to solve geophysical nonlinear inversion and other nonlinear optimization problems by means of QMC method. They are also showing that Green’s function Monte Carlo (GFMC) and diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) are more applicable than Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) and Variational Monte Carlo (VMC) in real data. The third part provides the parallel version of serial QMC algorithms which are applied in a 2D acoustic velocity inversion and real seismic data processing and further discusses these algorithms’ globality and anti-noise capacity. The inverted results show the robustness of these algorithms which make them feasible to be used in 2D inversion and real data processing. The parallel inversion algorithms in this chapter are also applicable in other optimization. Finally, some useful conclusions are obtained in the last section. The analysis and comparison of the results indicate that it is successful to bring QMC into geophysical inversion. QMC is a kind of nonlinear inversion method which guarantees stability, efficiency and anti-noise. The most appealing property is that it does not rely heavily on the initial model and can be suited to nonlinear and multi-minimum geophysical inverse problems. This method can also be used in other filed regarding nonlinear optimization.

含激电信息的人工源频率域电磁法正演研究——大功率人工固定源极低频电磁法激电效应预研究

ABSTRACT Base on Dias-model, this paper study the forward modeling to IP response with MT souece and CSAMT source with the author’s program，that is to provide the theoretical basis for extracting the IP information from the far field, near field and transition field in extremely low frequency electromagnetic sounding with artificial strong fixed source signal. The outline of the paper is as follows. Firstly, review the history of the complex-resistivity-model, and analyses the bases for choosing Dias model; meanwhile, effects and responses of each parameter in Dias model are analyses. Afterward, study the forward modeling to 1D layered model with MT source, numerically simulate the IP effects of classic geoelectric objects; Find the clear anomaly and relationship between the peak value of the amplitude anomaly ratio and phase anomaly difference with and without IP parameters to be considered within a frequency range. On the basis of the modeling of MT, Study the CSAMT modeling with a dipole-source, obtain the anomaly responses and the relationship between anomaly and characters of object. Base on the infinite line source, study the 2D IP effect of geoelectric objects with 2D modeling. Calculate the response with different source distance, object depth and different wall rock resistivity systemically. Finally, conclude the viewpoints and give the discussion of the result, and point out the lack of this research also.

计算层状介质中电磁场的层矩阵法

As an important branch of electrical prospecting method, the artificial source frequency domain electromagnetism method has received more and more attention. But when conducts the fundamental research, people often isolated study some concrete method, so the research results of one method are very difficult to apply to another method directly. This article will possess the artificial source frequency domain EM method to an 1D model simply. It is stratified medium model, with an electric or magnetic source in or outside of it. Then take the horizontal electric dipole source as an example to introduce how to computing the EM field in stratified medium. Because layer matrix is the key of establishing equations, so we call it the layer-matrix method. The key of layer-matrix method is establishing equations by using layer matrixes in wavenumber(kx, ky, z) domain, then obtains the electromagnetic field value of wavenumber domain. After Fourier transform, we can get electromagnetic field of any position in spatial domain. The layer matrix technique theoretically can calculate electromagnetic field of any position for any source, is suitable for many kinds of electromagnetic method. After introduction of the layer matrix method, this article has done some CSAMT, MCSEM and Wireless Electro-Magnetic Method (WEM) modeling with layer matrix method separately. In CSAMT modeling, we get electromagnetic field dissemination characteristics considering wave number of the air, and obtain three-dimensional distribution characteristics of the electromagnetic field. In MCSEM modeling, we get electromagnetic field dissemination characteristics with and without considering the airwave, and obtain three-dimensional distribution characteristics of electromagnetic field. In WEM modeling, we get electromagnetic field’s difference between considering the ionosphere and not considering it, and recognize the ionosphere’s influence of electromagnetic field. With the layer matrix technique, we have got some new understandings of EM dissemination rules of different situations. All analysis results indicate that the layer-matrix technique is credible and effective, and are worthy of further thorough research and development.

Synteza i struktura nowych aminowych analogów ansamycynowego antybiotyku rifampicyny

Wydział Chemii: Zakład Biochemii

Stochastic Refinement of the Visual Hull to Satisfy Photometric and Silhouette Consistency Constraints

An iterative method for reconstructing a 3D polygonal mesh and color texture map from multiple views of an object is presented. In each iteration, the method first estimates a texture map given the current shape estimate. The texture map and its associated residual error image are obtained via maximum a posteriori estimation and reprojection of the multiple views into texture space. Next, the surface shape is adjusted to minimize residual error in texture space. The surface is deformed towards a photometrically-consistent solution via a series of 1D epipolar searches at randomly selected surface points. The texture space formulation has improved computational complexity over standard image-based error approaches, and allows computation of the reprojection error and uncertainty for any point on the surface. Moreover, shape adjustments can be constrained such that the recovered model's silhouette matches those of the input images. Experiments with real world imagery demonstrate the validity of the approach.

BoostMap: A Method for Efficient Approximate Similarity Rankings

This paper introduces BoostMap, a method that can significantly reduce retrieval time in image and video database systems that employ computationally expensive distance measures, metric or non-metric. Database and query objects are embedded into a Euclidean space, in which similarities can be rapidly measured using a weighted Manhattan distance. Embedding construction is formulated as a machine learning task, where AdaBoost is used to combine many simple, 1D embeddings into a multidimensional embedding that preserves a significant amount of the proximity structure in the original space. Performance is evaluated in a hand pose estimation system, and a dynamic gesture recognition system, where the proposed method is used to retrieve approximate nearest neighbors under expensive image and video similarity measures. In both systems, BoostMap significantly increases efficiency, with minimal losses in accuracy. Moreover, the experiments indicate that BoostMap compares favorably with existing embedding methods that have been employed in computer vision and database applications, i.e., FastMap and Bourgain embeddings.

Learning Euclidean Embeddings for Indexing and Classification

BoostMap is a recently proposed method for efficient approximate nearest neighbor retrieval in arbitrary non-Euclidean spaces with computationally expensive and possibly non-metric distance measures. Database and query objects are embedded into a Euclidean space, in which similarities can be rapidly measured using a weighted Manhattan distance. The key idea is formulating embedding construction as a machine learning task, where AdaBoost is used to combine simple, 1D embeddings into a multidimensional embedding that preserves a large amount of the proximity structure of the original space. This paper demonstrates that, using the machine learning formulation of BoostMap, we can optimize embeddings for indexing and classification, in ways that are not possible with existing alternatives for constructive embeddings, and without additional costs in retrieval time. First, we show how to construct embeddings that are query-sensitive, in the sense that they yield a different distance measure for different queries, so as to improve nearest neighbor retrieval accuracy for each query. Second, we show how to optimize embeddings for nearest neighbor classification tasks, by tuning them to approximate a parameter space distance measure, instead of the original feature-based distance measure.

Surface plasmon resonance in nanostructured metal films under the Kretschmann configuration

We systematically investigated the surface plasmon resonance in one-dimensional (1D) subwavelength nanostructured metal films under the Kretschmann configuration. We calculated the reflectance, transmittance, and absorption for varying the dielectric fill factor, the period of the 1D nanostructure, and the metal film thickness. We have found that the small dielectric slits in the metal films reduce the surface plasmon resonance angle and move it toward the critical angle for total internal reflection. The reduction in surface plasmon resonance angle in nanostructured metal films is due to the increased intrinsic free electron oscillation frequency in metal nanostructures. Also we have found that the increasing the spatial frequency of the 1D nanograting reduces the surface plasmon resonance angle, which indicates that less momentum is needed to match the momentum of the surface plasmon-polariton. The variation in the nanostructured metal film thickness changes the resonance angle slightly, but mainly remains as a mean to adjust the coupling between the incident optical wave and the surface plasmon-polariton wave. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.

Interactions spatiales et auto-organisation des végétations semi-arides

Les recherches récapitulées dans cette thèse de doctorat ont porté sur les causes de l’organisation spatiale des végétations périodiques. Ces structures paysagères aux motifs réguliers, tachetés, tigrés ou labyrinthiques, d’échelle décamétrique à hectométrique, couvrant des étendues considérables sur au moins trois continents, constituent un cas d’école dans l’étude des processus endogènes présidant à l’hétérogénéité du couvert végétal. Ces structures prennent place sur un substrat homogène, mis à part la rétroaction du couvert lui-même, et sont marquées par des écotones abrupts et la persistance d’une proportion considérable de sol nu. Plusieurs modèles ont mis en avant l’existence possible d’un phénomène d’auto-organisation du couvert, qui verrait une structure d’ensemble émerger des interactions locales entre individus. Ces modèles se basent sur le jeu simultané de la consommation de la ressource (compétition) et de l’amélioration de l’un ou l’autre des éléments du bilan de la même ressource par le couvert (facilitation). La condition à l’existence d’une structure d’ensemble spatialement périodique et stable réside dans une différence entre la portée de la compétition (plus grande) et celle de la facilitation. L’apparition de ces structures est modulée par le taux de croissance biologique, qui est le reflet des contraintes extérieures telles que l’aridité, le pâturage ou la coupe de bois. Le modus operandi des interactions spatiales supposées entre individus reste largement à préciser.

Nos recherches ont été menées au sud-ouest de la République du Niger, à l’intérieur et dans les environs du parc Régional du W. Trois axes ont été explorés :(i) Une étude de la dépendance spatiale entre la structure de la végétation (biovolumes cartographiés) et les paramètres du milieu abiotique (relief, sol), sur base d’analyses spectrales et cross-spectrales par transformée de Fourier (1D et 2D). (ii) Une étude diachronique (1956, 1975 et 1996) à large échelle (3000 km²) de l’influence de l’aridité et des pressions d’origine anthropique sur l’auto-organisation des végétations périodiques, basée sur la caractérisation de la structure spatiale des paysages sur photos aériennes via la transformée de Fourier en 2D. (iii) Trois études portant sur les interactions spatiales entre individus :En premier lieu, via l’excavation des systèmes racinaires (air pulsé) ;Ensuite, par un suivi spatio-temporel du bilan hydrique du sol (blocs de gypse) ;Enfin, via le marquage de la ressource par du deutérium.

Nous avons ainsi pu établir que les végétations périodiques constituent bien un mode d’auto-organisation pouvant survenir sur substrat homogène et modulé par les contraintes climatiques et anthropiques. Un ajustement rapide entre l’organisation des végétations périodiques et le climat a pu être montrée en zone protégée. La superficie et l’organisation des végétations périodiques y ont tour à tour progressé et régressé en fonction d’épisodes secs ou humides. Par contre, en dehors de l’aire protégée, la possibilité d’une restauration du couvert semble fortement liée au taux d’exploitation des ressources végétales. Ces résultats ont d’importantes implications quant à la compréhension des interactions entre climat et écosystèmes et à l’évaluation de leurs capacités de charge. La caractérisation de la structure spatiale des végétations arides, notamment par la transformée de Fourier d’images HR, devrait être généralisée comme outil de monitoring de l’état de ces écosystèmes. Nos études portant sur les modes d’interactions spatiales ont permis de confirmer l’existence d’une facilitation à courte portée du couvert végétal sur la ressource. Cependant, cette facilitation ne semble pas s’exercer sur le terme du bilan hydrique traditionnellement avancé, à savoir l’infiltration, mais plutôt sur le taux d’évaporation (deux fois moindre à l’ombre des canopées). Ce mécanisme exclut l’existence de transferts diffusifs souterrains entre sols nu et fourrés. Des transferts inverses semblent d’ailleurs montrés par le marquage isotopique. L’étude du bilan hydrique et la cartographie du micro-relief, ainsi que la profondeur fortement réduite de la zone d’exploitation racinaire, jettent de sérieux doutes quant au rôle communément admis des transferts d’eau par ruissellement/diffusion de surface en tant que processus clé dans la compétition à distance entre les plantes. L’alternative réside dans l’existence d’une compétition racinaire de portée supérieure aux canopées. Cette hypothèse trouve une confirmation tant par les rhizosphères excavées, superficielles et étendues, que dans le marquage isotopique, montrant des contaminations d’arbustes situés à plus de 15 m de la zone d’apport. De même, l’étude du bilan hydrique met en évidence les influences simultanées et contradictoires (facilitation/compétition) des ligneux sur l’évapotranspiration.

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This PhD thesis gathers results of a research dealing with the causes of the spatial organisation of periodic vegetations. These landscape structures, featuring regular spotted, labyrinthine or banded patterns of decametric to hectometric scale, and extending over considerable areas on at least three continents, constitute a perfect study case to approach endogenous processes leading to vegetation heterogeneities. These patterns occur over homogeneous substratum, except for vegetation’s own feedbacks, and are marked by sharp ecotones and the persistence of a considerable amount of bare soil. A number of models suggested a possible case of self-organized patterning, in which the general structure would emerge from local interactions between individuals. Those models rest on the interplay of competitive and facilitative effects, relating to soil water consumption and to soil water budget enhancement by vegetation. A general necessary condition for pattern formation to occur is that negative interactions (competition) have a larger range than positive interactions (facilitation). Moreover, all models agree with the idea that patterning occurs when vegetation growth decreases, for instance as a result of reduced water availability, domestic grazing or wood cutting, therefore viewing patterns as a self-organised response to environmental constraints. However the modus operandi of the spatial interactions between individual plants remains largely to be specified.

We carried out a field research in South-West Niger, within and around the W Regional Park. Three research lines were explored: (i) The study of the spatial dependency between the vegetation pattern (mapped biovolumes) and the factors of the abiotic environment (soil, relief), on the basis of spectral and cross-spectral analyses with Fourier transform (1D and 2D). (ii) A broad scale diachronic study (1956, 1975, 1996) of the influence of aridity and human induced pressures on the vegetation self-patterning, based on the characterisation of patterns on high resolution remote sensing data via 2D Fourier transform. (iii) Three different approaches of the spatial interactions between individuals: via root systems excavation with pulsed air; via the monitoring in space and time of the soil water budget (gypsum blocks method); and via water resource labelling with deuterated water.

We could establish that periodic vegetations are indeed the result of a self-organisation process, occurring in homogeneous substratum conditions and modulated by climate and human constraints. A rapid adjustment between vegetation patterning and climate could be observed in protected zones. The area and patterning of the periodic vegetations successively progressed and regressed, following drier or wetter climate conditions. On the other hand, outside protected areas, the restoration ability of vegetation appeared to depend on the degree of vegetation resource exploitation. These results have important implications regarding the study of vegetation-climate interactions and the evaluation of ecosystems’ carrying capacities. Spatial pattern characterisation in arid vegetations using Fourier transform of HR remote sensing data should be generalised for the monitoring of those ecosystems. Our studies dealing with spatial interaction mechanisms confirmed the existence of a short range facilitation of the cover on water resource. However, this facilitation does not seem to act through the commonly accepted infiltration component, but rather on the evaporative rate (twice less within thickets). This mechanism excludes underground diffusive transfers between bare ground and vegetation. Inverse transfers were even shown by deuterium labelling. Water budget study and micro-elevation mapping, along with consistent soil shallowness, together cast serious doubts on the traditional mechanism of run-off/diffusion of surface water as a key process of the long range competition between plants. An alternative explanation lies in long range root competition. This hypothesis find support as well in the excavated root systems, shallow and wide, as in isotopic labelling, showing contaminations of shrubs located up to 15 m of the irrigated area. Water budget study also evidenced simultaneous contradictory effects (facilitation/competition) of shrubs on evapotranspiration.

Development of numerical techniques for near-field aeroacoustic computations

This work is concerned with the development of a numerical scheme capable of producing accurate simulations of sound propagation in the presence of a mean flow field. The method is based on the concept of variable decomposition, which leads to two separate sets of equations. These equations are the linearised Euler equations and the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. This paper concentrates on the development of numerical schemes for the linearised Euler equations that leads to a computational aeroacoustics (CAA) code. The resulting CAA code is a non-diffusive, time- and space-staggered finite volume code for the acoustic perturbation, and it is validated against analytic results for pure 1D sound propagation and 2D benchmark problems involving sound scattering from a cylindrical obstacle. Predictions are also given for the case of prescribed source sound propagation in a laminar boundary layer as an illustration of the effects of mean convection. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Automatic and effective multi-dimensional parallelisation of structured mesh based codes

The most common parallelisation strategy for many Computational Mechanics (CM) (typified by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications) which use structured meshes, involves a 1D partition based upon slabs of cells. However, many CFD codes employ pipeline operations in their solution procedure. For parallelised versions of such codes to scale well they must employ two (or more) dimensional partitions. This paper describes an algorithmic approach to the multi-dimensional mesh partitioning in code parallelisation, its implementation in a toolkit for almost automatically transforming scalar codes to parallel form, and its testing on a range of ‘real-world’ FORTRAN codes. The concept of multi-dimensional partitioning is straightforward, but non-trivial to represent as a sufficiently generic algorithm so that it can be embedded in a code transformation tool. The results of the tests on fine real-world codes demonstrate clear improvements in parallel performance and scalability (over a 1D partition). This is matched by a huge reduction in the time required to develop the parallel versions when hand coded – from weeks/months down to hours/days.

Triterpenoid saponins from a cytotoxic root extract of Sideroxylon foetidissimum subsp. gaumeri

Evaluation of the cytotoxicity of an ethanolic root extract of Sideroxylonfoetidissimum subsp. gaumeri (Sapotaceae) revealed activity against the murine macrophage-like cell line RAW 264.7. Systematic bioassay-guided fractionation of this extract gave an active saponin-containing fraction from which four saponins were isolated. Use of 1D ((1)H, (13)C, DEPT135) and 2D (COSY, TOCSY, HSQC, and HMBC) NMR, mass spectrometry and sugar analysis gave their structures as 3-O-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1-->6)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl)-28-O-(alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->3)[beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)]-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl)-16alpha-hydroxyprotobassic acid, 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-28-O-(alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->3)[beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)]-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl)-16alpha-hydroxyprotobassic acid, 3-O-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1-->6)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl)-28-O-(alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->3)-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)[beta-D-apiofuranosyl-(1-->3)]-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl)-16alpha-hydroxyprotobassic acid, and the known compound, 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-28-O-(alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->3)[beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)]-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl)-protobassic acid. Two further saponins were obtained from the same fraction, but as a 5:4 mixture comprising 3-O-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl)-28-O-(alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->3)-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)[beta-D-apiofuranosyl-(1-->3)]-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl)-16alpha-hydroxyprotobassic acid and 3-O-(beta-D-apiofuranosyl-(1-->3)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl)-28-O-(alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->3)[beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)]-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl)-16alpha-hydroxyprotobassic acid, respectively. This showed greater cytotoxicity (IC(50)=11.9+/-1.5 microg/ml) towards RAW 264.7 cells than the original extract (IC(50)=39.5+/-4.1 microg/ml), and the saponin-containing fraction derived from it (IC(50)=33.7+/-6.2 microg/ml).