Environmentally associated spatial changes of a macrozoobenthic community in the Saemangeum tidal flat,Korea

Estuarine tidal flats are both ecologically and economically important, hence developing methods to reliably measure ecosystem health is essential. Because benthic fauna play a central role in the food web of tidal flats, in this study we set out to quantitatively describe the intertidal zonation of macro-invertebrates and their associations with specific environmental parameters along three transects in the Saemangeum tidal flat, Korea. The abundance and biomass of intertidal fauna with respect to five environmental parameters (i.e., shore level, mud content, coarse sand content, water content, and organic content) were measured, to identify environmental factors that influence macrofaunal distribution in intertidal soft bottom habitats. A total of 75 species were identified, with dominant species showing distinct zones of distribution along all transects. The number of species recorded in each transect was found to be dependent on sediment characteristics and salinity. Cluster analysis classified the entire study area into three faunal assemblages (i.e., location groups), which were delineated by characteristic species, including (A) ‘Periserrula–Macrophthalmus’, (B) ‘Umbonium–Meretrix’, and (C) ‘Prionospio–Potamocorbula’. Four environmental variables (i.e., shore level, water content, mud content, and organic content) appeared to determine factors that distinguished the three faunal assemblages, based on the discriminant analysis. The faunal assemblage types of the sampled locations were accurately predicted from environmental variables in two discriminant functions, with a prediction accuracy of 98%. It should be noted that the zonation of benthos in the lower section (C) of Sandong had been affected by the construction of a nearby dike, while this parameter had remained essentially unchanged at the other two location groups (A–B). Overall, the zonation of benthos from the Saemangeum tidal flat was explained adequately by the measured environmental variables, implying that faunal assemblages are closely associated with certain combinations of abiotic factors. The identification of such reliable associations may facilitate the development of statistical models to predict faunal distributions based on environmental variables at both local and regional scales. The entire study area was embanked in 2006 (one year after this study), and an integrated plan was set into force to develop claimed land into industrial, residential and agricultural districts, which also included a partial restoration program of the tidal flats located near to the study area.     

Vertical structure variability and equatorial waves during central Pacific and eastern Pacific El Ni?os in a coupled general circulation model

Recent studies report that two types of El Ni?o events have been observed. One is the cold tongue El Ni?o or Eastern Pacific El Ni?o (EP El Ni?o), which is characterized by relatively large sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the eastern Pacific, and the other is the warm pool El Ni?o (a.k.a. ‘Central Pacific El Ni?o’ (CP El Ni?o) or ‘El Ni?o Modoki’), in which SST anomalies are confined to the central Pacific. Here the vertical structure variability of the periods during EP and CP is investigated based on the GFDL_CM2.1 model in order to explain the difference in equatorial wave dynamics and associated negative feedback mechanisms. It is shown that the mean stratification in the vicinity of the thermocline of the central Pacific is reduced during CP El Ni?o, which favours the contribution of the gravest baroclinic mode relatively to the higher-order slower baroclinic mode. Energetic Kelvin and first-meridional Rossby wave are evidenced during the CP El Ni?o with distinctive amplitude and propagating characteristics according to their vertical structure (mostly first and second baroclinic modes). In particular, the first baroclinic mode during CP El Ni?o is associated to the ocean basin mode and participates to the recharge process during the whole El Ni?o cycle, whereas the second baroclinic mode is mostly driving the discharge process through the delayed oscillator mechanism. This may explain that the phase transition from warm to neutral/cold conditions during the CP El Ni?o is delayed and/or disrupted compared to the EP El Ni?o. Our results have implications for the interpretation of the variability during periods of high CP El Ni?o occurrence like the last decade.     

Temporal dynamics of phytoplankton communities in a semi-enclosed mariculture pond and their responses to environmental factors

Variations in physical-chemical factors, species composition, abundance and biomass of nano- and micro-phytoplankton assemblages, as well as their responses to environmental factors, were investigated over a complete cycle (6 months) in a semi-enclosed shrimp-farming pond near Qingdao, northern China. The aim was to establish the temporal patterns of phytoplankton communities and to evaluate protists as suitable bioindicators to water quality in mariculture systems. A total of 34 taxa with nine dominant species were identified, belonging to six taxonomic groups (dinoflagellates, diatoms, cryptophyceans, chlorophyceans, euglenophyceans and chrysophyceans). A single peak of protist abundance occurred in October, mainly due to chlorophyceans, diatoms and chrysophyceans. Two biomass peaks in July and October were primarily due to dinoflagellates and diatoms. Temporal patterns of the phytoplankton communities significantly correlated with the changes in nutrients, temperature and pH, especially phosphate, either alone or in combination with NO₃-N and NH₃-N. Species diversity, evenness and richness indices were clearly correlated with water temperature and/or salinity, whereas the biomass/abundance ratio showed a significant correlation with NO₃-N. The results suggest that phytoplankton are potentially useful bioindicators to water quality in semi-enclosed mariculture systems.     

Hybrid continuum–discrete simulation of granular impact dynamics

Acta Geotechnica - Granular impact—the dynamic intrusion of solid objects into granular media—is widespread across scientific and engineering applications including geotechnics....     

Underwater autonomous manipulation for intervention missions AUVs

Many underwater intervention tasks are today performed using manned submersibles or remotely operated vehicles in teleoperation mode. Autonomous underwater vehicles are mostly employed in survey applications. In fact, the low bandwidth and significant time delay inherent in acoustic subsea communications represent a considerable obstacle to remotely operate a manipulation system, making it impossible for remote controllers to react to problems in a timely manner.Nevertheless, vehicles with no physical link and with no human occupants permit intervention in dangerous areas, such as in deep ocean, under ice, in missions to retrieve hazardous objects, or in classified areas. The key element in underwater intervention performed with autonomous vehicles is autonomous manipulation. This is a challenging technology milestone, which refers to the capability of a robot system that performs intervention tasks requiring physical contacts with unstructured environments without continuous human supervision.Today, only few AUVs are equipped with manipulators. SAUVIM (Semi Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Mission, University of Hawaii) is one of the first underwater vehicle capable of autonomous manipulation.This paper presents the solutions chosen within the development of the system in order to address the problems intrinsic to autonomous underwater manipulation. In the proposed approach, the most noticeable aspect is the increase in the level of information transferred between the system and the human supervisor.We describe one of the first trials of autonomous intervention performed by SAUVIM in the oceanic environment. To the best knowledge of the authors, no sea trials in underwater autonomous manipulation have been presented in the literature. The presented operation is an underwater recovery mission, which consists in a sequence of autonomous tasks finalized to search for the target and to securely hook a cable to it in order to bring the target to the surface.     

Probabilistic seismic performance assessment of lap-spliced RC columns retrofitted by steel wrapping jackets

In this study, the seismic fragility curves of two reinforced concrete (RC) columns that were lap-spliced at the bottom and retrofitted with steel wrapping jackets were generated. Their seismic performance was probabilistically assessed in comparison to that of lap-spliced or continuous reinforcement RC columns. This study used two types of steel wrapping jackets, a full jacket and a split jacket. Analytical models of the four types of columns were developed based on the experimental results of the columns using OpenSEES, which is effective in conducting nonlinear time history analyses. A suite of ten artificial ground motions, modified from recorded ground motions, was used to perform nonlinear time history analyses of the analytical models with scaling of the peak ground acceleration from 0.1 g to 1.0 g in increments of 0.1 g. The steel wrapping jackets did not increase the medians for yield (slight damage state) of the lap-spiced column and did not exceed the corresponding median of the continuous reinforcement column. However, the two steel jackets increased the medians for failure by 1.872 and 2.017 times, respectively, and exceeded the corresponding median of the continuous reinforcement column by 11.8% and 20.5%, respectively.     

Description of a small goby, Trimma grammistes (Perciformes: Gobiidae), from Jeju Island, Korea

A small goby, Trimma grammistes, was described in detail as the first reliable record from Korea based on 10 specimens (27.8～34.0 mm SL) collected from the coastal waters of Jeju Island. The species is easily differentiated from congeners by having no scales on the predorsal region, VI-I, 10 dorsal fin rays modally, I, 10 anal fin rays, 18 pectoral fin rays, 27～30 longitudinal scales as well as two dark longitudinal bands on the body.     

Predicting rock size distribution in mine blasting using various novel soft computing models based on meta-heuristics and machine learning algorithms

Blasting is well-known as an effective method for fragmenting or moving rock in open-pit mines. To evaluate the quality of blasting, the size of rock distribution is used as a critical criterion in blasting operations. A high percentage of oversized rocks generated by blasting operations can lead to economic and environmental damage. Therefore, this study proposed four novel intelligent models to predict the size of rock distribution in mine blasting in order to optimize blasting parameters, as well as the efficiency of blasting operation in open mines. Accordingly, a nature-inspired algorithm (i.e., firefly algorithm – FFA) and different machine learning algorithms (i.e., gradient boosting machine (GBM), support vector machine (SVM), Gaussian process (GP), and artificial neural network (ANN)) were combined for this aim, abbreviated as FFA-GBM, FFA-SVM, FFA-GP, and FFA-ANN, respectively. Subsequently, predicted results from the abovementioned models were compared with each other using three statistical indicators (e.g., mean absolute error, root-mean-squared error, and correlation coefficient) and color intensity method. For developing and simulating the size of rock in blasting operations, 136 blasting events with their images were collected and analyzed by the Split-Desktop software. In which, 111 events were randomly selected for the development and optimization of the models. Subsequently, the remaining 25 blasting events were applied to confirm the accuracy of the proposed models. Herein, blast design parameters were regarded as input variables to predict the size of rock in blasting operations. Finally, the obtained results revealed that the FFA is a robust optimization algorithm for estimating rock fragmentation in bench blasting. Among the models developed in this study, FFA-GBM provided the highest accuracy in predicting the size of fragmented rocks. The other techniques (i.e., FFA-SVM, FFA-GP, and FFA-ANN) yielded lower computational stability and efficiency. Hence, the FFA-GBM model can be used as a powerful and precise soft computing tool that can be applied to practical engineering cases aiming to improve the quality of blasting and rock fragmentation.     

Interdecadal change in North Korean winter mean rainfall

In the present study, it was found that there was a significant climate regime shift in 1993 from average rainfall amounts in winter (December of a year and January and February of the next year) in North Korea over the last 30 years (1982–2011). This significant climate regime shift in 1993 also appeared in empirical orthogonal function analysis conducted using the winter mean rainfall amounts observed at 26 weather observation stations in North Korea. The reason why winter mean rainfall amounts in North Korea were smaller during the period of 1994–2011 than during the period of 1982–1994 was that anomalous anticyclone was reinforced in regions near Lake Baikal while anomalous cyclone was reinforced on the sea on the east of Japan so that the winter pressure system pattern (west high-east low pattern) appeared and thus anomalous cold and dry northerlies were reinforced in most East Asian regions including North Korea. To figure out the reason why anomalous anticyclone was reinforced further in the East Asian continent in winters during the period of 1994–2011, differences in water equivalent of accumulated snow depths between the two periods were analyzed. As a result, more snow was observed in most East Asian regions during the period of 1994–2011. Therefore, anomalous anticyclone could be further reinforced in the East Asian continent because surface air temperature dropped further due to snow-albedo effect. The surface air temperature cooling deepened further in the East Asian continent during the period of 1994–2011 due to snow-albedo effect was identified through differences in sensible heat net flux between the two periods.     

The effect of weathering on optically stimulated luminescence dating

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating was applied to quartz samples recovered from the gravel sediments of deformed marine terrace at the Suryum site, southeastern Korea, but has yielded stratigraphically inconsistent ages. Micromorphological, chemical, and mineralogical analyses of the gravels indicate the possible influence of chemical weathering on the apparent OSL ages. In the course of weathering after emerging from beach environments, originally permeable gravels underwent infilling by halloysite-rich clays in their voids, export and import of radioactive elements, and loss of mechanical strength with the creation of a porosity within pebbles. Calculation based on the evolution of the weathering profile showed a severe fluctuation of dose rate caused by the change of water content and radioactive element concentrations. Samples recovered from the weathering profile inevitably include quartz grains derived from mechanically weakened pebbles or illuviated from the upper layer, making it difficult to determine the equivalent dose (D_e) values of exclusively depositional quartz sands. Quantitative evaluation of the change of fabric and chemistry of the sediments on the basis of pedologic insight significantly aids in the derivation of OSL ages consistent with geomorphology and other independent age controls.