Effect of phenol on embryo development and expression of metallothionein in the sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus

In this study, we identified and cloned the sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus MT (Hp-MT) mRNA. We examined the gameto- and embryo-toxic effects and the expression of Hp-MT mRNA at various concentrations of phenol in H. pulcherrimus. We found that the normal embryogenesis rate was significantly inhibited when H. pulcherrimus was exposed to phenol (EC₅₀ = 1565.86 ppb, 95% Cl = 1183.47-2037.84 ppb). The no observed effective concentration (NOEC) and the lowest observed effective concentration (LOEC) of the normal embryogenesis rate were < 10 ppb and 100 ppb, respectively. Hp-MT cDNA is 651 bp in length and encodes a protein of 64 amino acids. We found that the expression of Hp-MT mRNA was significantly increased with phenol treatment in a concentrationdependent manner. These results suggest that phenol at greater than 100 ppb has a toxic effect during the early embryonic stages of H. pulcherrimus, and MT mRNA may be used as a biomarker for risk assessment of phenol contamination.     

Coastal Gravity Anomalies from Retracked Geosat/GM Altimetry: Improvement, Limitation and the Role of Airborne Gravity Data

We process geophysical and waveform data records of the Geosat/GM (geodetic mission) satellite altimeter mission for waveform retracking and applications. An improved threshold retracker is developed. The performances of the Beta-5, threshold and improved threshold retrackers are assessed over waters around Taiwan. The improved threshold retracker outperforms the other two. The improvement in the accuracy of sea surface height (SSH) is investigated according to marine zone and the distance of waters to the shore. The improvement rate increases closer to the land, with the largest improvement rate of about 20% in waters within 10 km of the shore. Over waters around islands and coasts, there are still retracked SSHs with large errors. Least-squares collocation is used to compute gravity anomalies from the Geosat/GM altimeter data. Use of retracked SSHs improves the accuracy of gravity anomalies by about 11%. Adding airborne gravity data further improves the accuracy, especially in the immediate vicinity of the coasts. Tide model errors over coastal waters remain a problem in altimetry applications, even if the waveforms are properly retracked.     

Practically Applicable Central Limit Theorem for Spatial Statistics

Let {Z(s):s∈D⊆ℝ ^d } be a zero mean stationary random field observed at a finite number of locations. Lahiri (Sankhya Ser. A 65:356–388, 2003) proved spatial central limit theorems (CLT) for ∑ _i=1 ⁿ Z(s _i ) assuming a ‘nearly infill domain sampling’. Applications of his results depended on the underlying spatial sampling region and the design in a complicated fashion. The main objective of this paper is to provide CLTs that could be applied easily in practice. We present two main results assuming a ‘nearly infill domain sampling’ defined mainly in terms of dependence. Theorem 1 establishes a CLT for ∑ _i=1 ⁿ Z(s _i ) and Theorem 2 is obtained mainly for applications to density estimates. We report on a simulation study for illustrating a way of applying our results in practice.     

Spectral analysis using orthonormal functions with a case study on the sea surface topography

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Spherical harmonics are orthonormalized using the Gram-Schmidt process in a function space. The problem of linear dependence of spherical harmonics over the oceans is studied using the Gram matrices and consequently three sets of orthonormal (ON) functions have been constructed. For the process an efficient formula for computing inner products of spherical harmonics has been developed. Important spectral properties of the ON functions are addressed. The ON functions may be used for representing the sea surface topography (SST) in the analysis of satellite altimeter data. The geoid error can be transformed to a representation by the ON functions and hence the comparison of powers of the geoid error and the SST signal only over the oceans is possible, leading to a better way of determining the cut-off frequency of the SST in the simultaneous solution using satellite altimeter data. As a case study, the modified Levitus SST is expanded into the ON functions. The results show that 99.90 per cent of that signal's energy is contained within degree 24 of the orthonormal functions. Such expansions also render better spectral behaviour of oceanic signals as compared to that from spherical harmonic expansions. The study shows that these generalized Fourier functions are suitable for spectral analyses of oceanic signals and they can be applied to future altimetric mission where the geoid and the SST are to be recovered.     

Influence of wavelength on the parameterization of drag coefficient and surface roughness

Surface waves are the roughness element of the ocean surface, the air-sea interaction processes are influenced by the wave conditions. The dynamic influence of surface waves decays exponentially with distance from the air-water interface. The relevant length scale characterizing the decay rate is the wavelength. The parameterization of drag coefficient and surface roughness can be significantly improved by using wavelength as the reference length scale of atmospheric measurements. The wavelength scaling of drag coefficient and dynamic roughness also receives support from theoretical studies of wind and wave coupling.     

Empirical formula for fundamental vibration periods of reinforced concrete buildings in Taiwan

More than 30 buildings around Taiwan have been selected to monitor the floor responses under seismic excitation. The structural array monitoring system in each building controls at most 27 channels of accelerometers distributed in several floors. Those buildings were triggered by many events during the past five years of operation. In each building, the records at the basement can be considered as the ground excitation, and the others at the upper floors are the structural responses. The frequency transfer functions of those buildings can be identified by ARX models, and then the fundamental vibration periods are estimated. The identified fundamental vibration periods using different events are compared in order to ensure the reliability of system identification. An empirical formula in predicting the fundamental vibration period is presented through the regression analysis to the identified fundamental vibration periods of 21 reinforced concrete (RC) moment‐resisting frame (MRF) buildings. It is found that the height of a building plays an important role in predicting the fundamental vibration period, compared with the length, width, and time after completion of the building. It is also found that the RC MRF buildings in Taiwan tend to be stiffer than those in the U.S. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active exchange of water and nutrients between seawater and shallow pore water in intertidal sandflats

In order to determine the temporal and spatial variations of nutrient profiles in the shallow pore water columns (upper 30 cm depth) of intertidal sandflats, we measured the salinity and nutrient concentrations in pore water and seawater at various coastal environments along the southern coast of Korea. In the intertidal zone, salinity and nutrient concentrations in pore water showed marked vertical changes with depth, owing to the active exchange between the pore water and overlying seawater, while they are temporally more stable and vertically constant in the sublittoral zone. In some cases, the advective flow of fresh groundwater caused strong vertical gradients of salinity and nutrients in the upper 10 cm depth of surface sediments, indicating the active mixing of the fresher groundwater with overlying seawater. Such upper pore water column profiles clearly signified the temporal fluctuation of lower-salinity and higher-Si seawater intrusion into pore water in an intertidal sandflat near the mouth of an estuary. We also observed a semimonthly fluctuation of pore water nutrients due to spring-neap tide associated recirculation of seawater through the upper sediments. Our study shows that the exchange of water and nutrients between shallow pore water and overlying seawater is most active in the upper 20 cm layer of intertidal sandflats, due to physical forces such as tides, wave set-up, and density-thermal gradient.     

Escaping the Territorially Trapped East Asian Developmental State Thesis

Using a multiscalar approach, there has been a recent increase in geographic critiques of the East Asian developmental state thesis (DST). These critiques argue that the existing DST literature is epistemologically caught in a territorial trap. There has been less concern, however, about the methodology related to this research. In this article, I suggest that scholars consider not only the epistemological perspective but also the methodological dimension to effectively exploit the less territorially trapped DST research. Based on these analyses, this article emphasizes that interdisciplinary research using a multiscalar methodology and epistemology is required to better explain economic development in East Asia.     

The impact of observation systems on medium-range weather forecasting in a global forecast system

To investigate the impact of various types of data on medium-range forecasts, observing system experiments are performed using an assimilation algorithm based on the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis system. Data-denial experiments for radiosonde, satellite, aircraft, and sea surface observations, and selected data experiments for radiosonde and surface data, are conducted for the boreal summer of 1997 and the boreal winter of 1997/1998. The data assimilation system used in this study is remarkably dependent on radiosonde data, which provides information about the three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere. As expected, the impact of radiosonde observations on medium-range forecasts is strongly positive over the Northern Hemisphere and tropics, whereas the satellite system is most beneficial over the Southern Hemisphere. These results are also found in experiments simulating historical changes in observation systems. Over the tropics, assimilation without radiosonde observations generates unbalanced analyses resulting in unrealistic forecasts that must be corrected by the forecast model. Forecasts based on analysis from the observation data before the era of radiosonde observation are found to be less meaningful. In addition, the impacts on forecasts are closely related to the geographical distribution of observation data. The memory of observation data embedded in the analysis tends to persist throughout forecasts. However, cases exist where the effect of forecast error growth is more dominant than that of analysis error, e.g., over East Asia in summer, and where the deficiency in observations is supplemented or the imbalance in analysis is adjusted by the forecast model during the period of forecasts. Forecast error growth may be related to the synoptic correction performed by the data assimilation system. Over data-rich areas, analysis fields are corrected to a greater extent by the data assimilation system than are those over data-poor areas, which can cause the forecast model to produce more forecast errors in medium-range forecasts. It is found that even one month per season is sufficient for forecast skill verification in data impact experiments. Additionally, the use of upper-air observations is found to benefit areas that are downstream of observation data-rich areas.