Antioxidant efficacy of extracts from a variety of seaweeds in a cellular system

As a part of an ongoing search for antioxidants frodm marine sources, antioxidant activities of 24 kinds of seaweeds (4 green algae, 8 brown algae, and 12 red algae) were investigated. The seaweeds were extracted by acetone/ dichloromethane and methanol, respectively. The antioxidant properties of both extracts were evaluated using four different activity tests, including degree of occurrence of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), NO, lipid peroxidation, and GSH (glutathione) in mouse macrophage Raw 264.7 cells. The levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and GSH were measured using 2’,7’-dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCF-DA) and monobromobimane as fluorescence probe, respectively. Moreover, the generation of NO and lipid peroxidation products were determined by each method based on the Griess reaction and TBARS assay. Solvent extracts from seaweeds such asScytosiphon lomentaria, Prionitis cornea, Laruencia okamurae,Callophyllis japonica, Sargassum horneri, Dictyopteris divaricat a,Lomentaria catenata, Corallina confuse, Ishige okamurae, andAhnfeltiopsis flabelliformi exhibited high antioxidant activities in cellular oxidizing systems.     

A Simultaneous Forbush Decrease Associated with an Earthward Coronal Mass Ejection Observed by STEREO

The intensity?Ctime profile of Forbush decrease (FD) events observed by neutron monitors (NMs) looks like that of a geomagnetic storm as defined by the Dst index. Oh, Yi, and Kim (J.?Geophys. Res. 113, A01103, 2008) and Oh and Yi (J.?Geophys. Res. 114, A11102, 2009) classified FD events based on the amount of overlap and simultaneity of their main phase in Universal Time (UT). Oh and Yi define an FD event as simultaneous if the main phases observed by NMs distributed evenly around the Earth overlap in UT, and nonsimultaneous if they overlap only in the local time of some stations. They suggested that the occurrence mechanisms of two types of FD events may be related to interplanetary (IP) magnetic structures such as IP shocks and magnetic clouds. In their model, the simultaneity of FD events depends on the strength and propagation direction of magnetic structures overtaking the Earth. Recently, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission has been able to visualize the emergence and propagation direction of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in three dimensions in the heliosphere; thus, it is now possible to test the suggested mechanisms. One simultaneous FD event observed on 18 February 2011 may have been caused by a CME heading directly toward the Earth, which was observed on 15 February 2011 by the STEREO mission. Therefore, the simultaneity of FD events is proven to be a useful analysis tool in understanding the geoeffectiveness of solar events such as interplanetary CMEs and IP shocks.     

Comet assay for the detection of genotoxicity in blood cells of flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) exposed to sediments and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

To investigate the genotoxic effect of marine sediments on aquatic organism, sediment samples were collected from 13 sites along the coast of Gwangyang Bay (Korea). Concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediments were determined and the relationship between exposure of flounder blood cells to sediment extracts and DNA single-strand breakage in the blood cells was examined using the comet assay. Levels of DNA damage were proportionally increased by exposure concentration and the highest sediment-associated DNA damage was observed at the station showing the highest PAHs contamination. DNA damage in blood cells exposed to five types of PAHs (benzo[a]pyrene, fluoranthene, anthracene, pyrene and phenanthrene) and in flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) exposed to benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) for 0, 2 and 4 days were assessed by measuring comet tail length. The tail lengths of five PAHs-exposed groups at 50 and 100 ppb were significantly different from the non-exposed group, and the genotoxic effect of BaP correlated with both concentration and duration of exposure. Throughout the study, significant differences in DNA breakage were recorded between cells exposed to sediment extracts or PAHs and non-exposed control. This study demonstrated the comet assay as a successful tool in monitoring contamination of marine sediments and assessing genotoxicity of PAHs in marine organisms, either in vitro or in vivo.     

Effects of nutrients on crude oil biodegradation in the upper intertidal zone

To enhance biodegradation, nutrients in the form of slow-release fertilizer (SRF) were applied to oil-contaminated microcosms (3%, v/v) which simulated intertidal environmental systems. Although nutrient concentrations in the interstitial water were not proportional to those in amended SRF, microbial activity, growth of oil-degrading microorganisms, and oil-degradation rate were closely related to the concentration of nutrients in the interstitial water. Adding nutrients at higher dose (microcosm I, 144.4 mg C/kg sand/day, versus microcosm II, 8.5 mg C/kg sand/day) had a positive effect on oil degradation rate, which was especially obvious during the early phase of treatment. Use of pristane, phytane, and nor-hopane as biomarkers enabled the detection of significant treatment differences in hydrocarbon biodegradation, which were not reliable enough when the data were normalized to sand mass.     

伴随韩国雨季开始和结束早晚的关联场分析

分析了与韩国雨季开始和结束的年际变化相关联的一些要素场发生的变化。分别对雨季开始和结束早晚的个例进行了合成分析。６月月平均资料用来分析与雨季开始早晚相关联的要素场变化，而在分析与雨季结束早晚相关联的要素场变化时则利用７月月平均资料。结果表明，对应雨季开始（或结束）早晚，大气环流和表面温度等要素不仅在东亚地区、而且在远离东亚的地方具有显著的差异。在东亚地区的显著差异主要是高空急流和西太平佯副热带高压。远离东亚的显著差异主要是印度季风和ＥＮＳＯ现象。印度季风与韩国雨季开始和结束均有关联，但ＥＮＳＯ现象只与雨季开始显著相关、而与结束并没有显著的关联。     

Prediction of East Asian summer precipitation via independent component analysis

A new statistical postprocessing method is proposed for seasonal climate prediction. The proposed method is based on a combination of independent component analysis (ICA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). Since the classical CCA cannot handle high-dimensional data wherein the number of variables is larger than the number of observations, ICA is pre-performed to reduce the dimension of the data. It is well known that empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is a popular method for dimension reduction in the climatology community; however, loss of information occurs when the data is not Gaussian distributed. To extend the scope of distribution assumption and improve the prediction ability simultaneously, we propose the ICA-based method. This study focuses on the prediction of future precipitation for the boreal summer (June?CJuly?CAugust; JJA) through 29 years (1979?C2007) on East Asia region. Results of the proposed ICA-based method show an improvement in seasonal climate prediction in terms of correlation and root mean square error as compared with those of the GCM simulation and the EOF/CCA method.     

The effect of ozone and aerosols on the surface erythemal UV radiation estimated from OMI measurements

Surface erythemal UV radiation is mainly affected by total column ozone, aerosols, clouds, and solar zenith angle. The effect of ozone on the surface UV radiation has been explored many times in the previous studies due to the decrease of ozone layer. In this study, we calculated the effect of aerosols on the surface UV radiation as well as that of ozone using data acquired from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). First, ozone, aerosol optical depth (AOD), and surface erythemal UVB radiation measured from satellite are compared with those from ground measurements. The results showed that the comparison for ozone was good with r ² of 0.92. For aerosol, there was difference between satellite measurements and surface measurements due to the insufficient information on aerosol in the retrieval algorithm. The r ² for surface erythemal UV radiation was high (～0.94) but satellite measurements showed about 30% larger values than surface measurements on average by not considering the effect of absorbing aerosols in the retrieval process from satellite measurements. Radiative amplification factor (RAF) is used to access the effect of ozone and aerosol quantitatively. RAF for ozone was 0.97～1.49 with solar zenith angle. To evaluate the effect of aerosol on the surface UV radiation, only clear-sky pixel data were used and solar zenith angle and total column amount of ozone were fixed. Also, RAF for aerosol was assessed according to the single scattering albedo (SSA) of aerosols. The results showed that RAF for aerosol with smaller SSA (< 0.90) was larger than that for with larger SSA (> 0.90). The RAF for aerosol was 0.09～0.22 for the given conditions which was relatively small compared to that for ozone. However, considering the fact that aerosol optical depth can change largely in time and space while the total column amount of ozone does not change very much, it needs to include the effect of aerosol to predict the variations of surface UV radiation more correctly.     

大兴安岭中生代玄武岩的地球化学特征：壳幔相互作用的证据

大兴安岭中生代玄武岩类由北区碱性系列岩石和南区亚碱性系列岩石组成, 主要活动时期为晚侏罗世至早白垩世, 在时间、空间上显示大体呈北北东向展布的环状 “热向斜构造”。北区碱性系列岩石高度富集轻稀土元素和大离子亲石元素, 其丰度类似于板内碱性玄武岩, 但明显亏损高场强元素这一特点又类似于火山弧钙碱性玄武岩。南区亚碱性系列岩石强烈亏损高场强元素的特征类似于火山弧钙碱性玄武岩, 但轻稀土元素和大离子亲石元素富集程度又类似于洋中脊拉斑玄武岩和岛弧拉斑玄武岩。显然, 大兴安岭中生代玄武岩系列显示地球化学双重性, 也就是既有板内特征又有火山弧特征, 既有富集特征又有亏损特征。这种地球化学双重性表明, 大兴安岭地区存在若干不同性质的地幔源： 富集性的、亏损性的、过渡性的地幔源。解释一个地区存在多元地幔源区模式的最佳方案是地幔柱。这种包含富集成分和亏损成分的地幔柱源区的形成是与古生代地质时期古亚洲域闭合过程中俯冲洋壳与亏损地幔相互作用的动力学、地球化学过程有关。     

Use of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria for assessment of chromium-contaminated soil

In recent years, biological toxicity tests have been conducted for soil assessment of environmental pollutants to evaluate the environmental risk due to heavy metals. In this study, batch tests were conducted with soils contaminated with hexavalent chromium (Cr⁶⁺) using sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB). For control soils (without Cr⁶⁺), the electrical conductivity (EC) increased linearly over time in all samples, indicating that no toxic substances were present in the soil. The initial EC varied between 6 and 7.8 mS/cm, and the final EC varied between 22 and 27 mS/cm after incubation for 65 h. For batch tests performed using Cr⁶⁺-contaminated soil, the EC increased slightly or remained stable in all the test samples after a few hours. Thus, the presence of toxic substance Cr⁶⁺ inhibited the SOB, which leads to no sulfuric acid formation and therefore, no change in EC. These results indicated that SOB can be employed as a test microorganism to assess the quality of heavy metal-contaminated soils.     

Extreme monsoons over East Asia: Possible role of Indian Ocean Zonal Mode

Summary The influence of the Indian Ocean Zonal Mode on the extreme summer monsoon rainfall over East Asia (China, Korea, Japan) has been investigated applying simple statistical techniques of correlation and composite analysis. While the observed rainfall data are used as a measure of rainfall activity, the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis data are used to examine the circulation features associated with the extreme monsoon phases and the dynamics of the zonal mode – monsoon variability connections. The data used covers the period 1960 to 2000.The equatorial Indian Ocean is dominated by westerly winds blowing towards Indonesia. However, during the positive phase of the zonal mode, an anomalous, intensified easterly flow prevails, consistent with the positive (negative) sea surface temperature anomalies over the western (southeastern) equatorial Indian Ocean. This positive phase of the zonal mode enhances summer monsoon activity over China, but suppresses the monsoon activity over the Korea-Japan sector, 3 to 4 seasons later. The relationship is more consistent and stronger over the Korea-Japan region than over China.The Indian Ocean influences the monsoon variability over East Asia via the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes or via the eastern Indian Ocean/west Pacific route. The monsoon-desert mechanism induces strong subsidence northwest of India due to the anomalous convection over the Indian Ocean region associated with the positive phase of the zonal mode. This induces a zonal wave pattern over the mid-latitudes of Asia propagating eastwards and displacing the north Pacific subtropical high over East Asia. The warming over the eastern Indian Ocean/west Pacific inhibits the westward extension of the north Pacific sub-tropical high. The location and shape of this high plays a dominant role in the monsoon variability over East Asia. The memory for delayed impact, three to four seasons later, could be carried by the surface boundary conditions of Eurasian snow cover via the northern channel or the equatorial SSTs near the Indonesian Through Flow via the southern channel.