Role of market agents in mitigating the climate change effects on food economy

Natural Hazards - Agriculture’s ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change is critical for agricultural households as well as the general public and policymakers. Economic agents can...     

Physicochemistry and Mineralogy of Storm Dust and Dust Sediment in Northern China

Dust sediments collected from 1995 to 1998 in Beijing, Dunhuang, Inner Mongolia, Kashi, the Kunlun Mountains, Lanzhou, Ningxia, the Taklimakan Desert, and Xi‘an, China, were characterized in terms of their physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties. Most aerosols and dust analysed ranged in texture from silty clay to clay loam. Their median particle diameters (Mds) generally ranged between 5 to 63μm,coinciding with those of loess from central China and the finest sand from northwestern China. The dust sediments were characterized by a predominance of SiO2 and Al2O3, followed by K2O. Their SiO2/Al2O3and K2O/SiO2 molar ratios ranged from 5.17 to 8.43 and from 0.009 to 0.0368, respectively. The mass concentration spectrum during a dust storm showed a single peak, rather than the triple peak generally observed under clear sky conditions. The dominant minerals were chlorite, illite, calcite, and dolomite.These physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties were consistent with those of aeolian soils and loess in western and central China. The results suggest that aerosols and fine-gained fractions of dust sediments collected in northern China are mainly composed of soil material transported from the arid and semiarid regions of China and Mongolia by prevailing winds. The rate of deposition and properties of dust falling on eastern China were strongly influenced by meteorological conditions, season, latitude, longitude, and altitude of the sampling sites.     

High-resolution satellite image segmentation using Hölder exponents

Texture in high-resolution satellite images requires substantial amendment in the conventional segmentation algorithms. A measure is proposed to compute the Hölder exponent (HE) to assess the roughness or smoothness around each pixel of the image. The localized singularity information is incorporated in computing the HE. An optimum window size is evaluated so that HE reacts to localized singularity. A two-step iterative procedure for clustering the transformed HE image is adapted to identify the range of HE, densely occupied in the kernel and to partition Hölder exponents into a cluster that matches with the range. Hölder exponent values (noise or not associated with the other cluster) are clubbed to a nearest possible cluster using the local maximum likelihood analysis.     

Responses of soil moisture to vegetation restoration type and slope length on the loess hillslope

Soil moisture, a critical variable in the hydrologic cycle, is highly influenced by vegetation restoration type. However, the relationship between spatial variation of soil moisture, vegetation restoration type and slope length is controversial. Therefore, soil moisture across soil layers (0-400 cm depth) was measured before and after the rainy season in severe drought (2015) and normal hydrological year (2016) in three vegetation restoration areas (artificial forestland, natural forestland and grassland), on the hillslopes of the Caijiachuan Catchment in the Loess area, China. The results showed that artificial forestland had the lowest soil moisture and most severe water deficit in 100-200 cm soil layers. Water depletion was higher in artificial and natural forestlands than in natural grassland. Moreover, soil moisture in the shallow soil layers (0-100 cm) under the three vegetation restoration types did not significantly vary with slope length, but a significant increase with slope length was observed in deep soil layers (below 100 cm). In 2015, a severe drought hydrological year, higher water depletion was observed at lower slope positions under three vegetation restoration types due to higher transpiration and evapotranspiration and unlikely recharge from upslope runoff. However, in 2016, a normal hydrological year, there was lower water depletion, even infiltration recharge at lower slope positions, indicating receiving a large amount of water from upslope. Vegetation restoration type, precipitation, slope length and soil depth during a rainy season, in descending order of influence, had significant effects on soil moisture. Generally, natural grassland is more beneficial for vegetation restoration than natural and artificial forestlands, and the results can provide useful information for understanding hydrological processes and improving vegetation restoration practices on the Loess Plateau     

Optimum temperature for the growth performance of juvenile orange-spotted grouper （Epinephelus coioides H.）

Effects of water temperature （17, 21, 25, 30 and 35℃） and body size （14.75-281.41 g initial body weight） on food consumption, growth, feed conversion, and dry matter content in orange-spotted grouper fed to satiation were investigated. The combined effect of temperature （T, ℃） and body weight （W, g） on maximum food consumption （Cmax, g/day） was described as： InCmax=-7.411＋0.828 InW＋0.317T4）.004 7T2, and the optimum feeding temperature was 33.9℃. The combined effect of temperature and body weight on growth （G） was described as： lnG=-4.461-0.2081nW＋0.394T-0.006 3T^2. The optimum growth temperature was 31.4℃, whereas overall growth rates were high at 25, 30 and 35 ℃. Feed conversion efficiencies （FCE, %）, increasing first and then decreasing with increasing temperature, averaged from 1.8 to 2.1 in terms of dry weight of food fish. The optimum temperature for FCE tended to be lower than that for growth or feeding. Dry matter content increased with both increasing water temperature （17, 25, 30 and 35℃） and body weight, and the combined effect of temperature and body weight on dry matter content （DM, %） was described as： lnDM =3.232＋0.01 4 lnW-0.004 4T＋0.001 2TInW.     

Biodegradation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Enteromorpha</Emphasis> polysaccharides by intestinal micro-community from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Siganus oramin</Emphasis>

Micro-communities are supposed to have more potential functions of biodegradation of polysaccharides than single strain; however, the intestinal micro-communities involved in the biodegradation of Enteromorpha polysaccharides (EP) were seldom reported. In order to obtain the EP-degrading micro-community, the intestines of Siganus oramin was obtained to isolate the micro-communities, which were enriched by 0.3% of EP as the sole carbon source. A stable micro-community with EP degradative capability was achieved after seven generations of subculture, named H1. Results showed that H1 was able to degrade 75% of EP within 24 hours, and the activity of EP lyases reached 500 U mL^?1 in 32 hours. With denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and 16S rRNA gene clone library analysis, ten bacteria closely related to Marinomonas pontica, Microbacterium sp., Leucobacter chironomi, Cyclobacterium sp., Algoriphagus winogradskyi, Pseudoalteromonas sp. and Vibrio sp. were determined. Furthermore, compared with the DGGE bands sequence and the clone library analysis, the dominant bacteria of the EP-biodegrading micro- community were Pseudoalteromonas sp. and Vibrio sp., with the respective proportion of 38% and 46%, and they should play an important role in EP degradation together with other degrading bacteria in the micro-community H1.     

塔克拉玛干沙漠腹地地表辐射与能量平衡

利用2013年塔克拉玛干沙漠塔中流动沙面地表辐射、土壤热通量、土壤温湿度和湍流通量观测资料,分析了沙漠腹地地表辐射和能量收支特征及闭合状况。结果表明：除潜热通量外,其余地表辐射各分量和能量平衡分量的月平均日变化结果整体均表现为标准的单峰型日循环形态,其中R_s↓与R_s↑变化同步,R_l↑、R_l↓滞后R_s↓0.5 ~ 1 h。各分量均表现出夏季高、春秋季次之、冬季低的季节波动性。干旱和极低的植被覆盖造成沙漠腹地全年潜热通量始终较为微弱,约占净辐射的2.8%,感热通量成为能量的主要消耗形式,约占净辐射的49%。偶尔的降水会刺激潜热通量突然增加。地表反照率相对较高且稳定,日变化呈早晚大、正午小的“U”型趋势,并具有明显的冬季高、夏季低的季节波动性,年均值0.28,月均值0.25~0.32。能量残差各月的日变化也均呈单峰曲线,日出后和日落前能量闭合程度最佳,并出现过闭合现象,全年夏季小,春秋季次之,冬季较大,月平均日峰值5.1~99.9 W·m^-2。土壤表层热储存是影响该地区能量平衡的重要因子之一,考虑表层土壤热存储后,地表能量闭合率达75.3%,能量闭合率夏季 > 春季 > 秋季 > 冬季,白天相比夜间有大幅提升。     

新疆和田河流域柽柳沙堆的生物地貌发育过程

Tamarix nabkha is one of the most widespread nabkhas,distributing in the arid region of China.Based on the observations outdoors and the simulation experiments in laboratories,analysis in this paper refers to the biological geomorphologic features and growth process of Tamarix nabkhas in the middle and lower reaches of the Hotan River,Xin- jiang.And the results indicate that the ecological type of Tamarix in the study area is a kind of Tugaic soil habitat based on the deep soil of the Populus Diversifolia f...     

Aluminum Consumption and Economic Growth: Evidence from Rich Countries

The article attempts to test the aluminum consumption–economic growth nexus for 20 rich economies for the period 1970–2009. Various panel data unit root and cointegration tests are applied. The series are found to be integrated of order one and cointegrated, especially after controlling for cross-sectional dependence. Moreover, the Blundell–Bond system generalized methods-of-moments is employed to conduct a panel causality test in a vector error-correction mechanism setting. Unidirectional causality running from aluminum consumption to real GDP is uncovered in the short-run, while real GDP is found to Granger-cause aluminum consumption in the long-run. Moreover, a 1% increase in real GDP generates an increase of 0.44% in aluminum consumption in the long-run for the whole panel.     

Porosity and hydraulic conductivity estimation of the basaltic aquifer in Southern Syria by using nuclear and electrical well logging techniques

An alternative approach using nuclear neutron-porosity and electrical resistivity well logging of long (64 inch) and short (16 inch) normal techniques is proposed to estimate the porosity and the hydraulic conductivity (K) of the basaltic aquifers in Southern Syria. This method is applied on the available logs of Kodana well in Southern Syria. It has been found that the obtained K value by applying this technique seems to be reasonable and comparable with the hydraulic conductivity value of 3.09 m/day obtained by the pumping test carried out at Kodana well. The proposed alternative well logging methodology seems as promising and could be practiced in the basaltic environments for the estimation of hydraulic conductivity parameter. However, more detailed researches are still required to make this proposed technique very performed in basaltic environments.