Climatic impacts on crop yield and its variability in Nepal: do they vary across seasons and altitudes?

A rapid change in climate patterns potentially driven by global warming is considered to be greatest threats to agriculture. However, little is known about how the change in climate concretely affects agricultural production especially in Nepal with respect to seasons and regions of different altitudes. To examine this issue, we seek to empirically identify the impact of climatic variation on agricultural yield and its variability by utilizing the data of rice, wheat and climate variables in the central region of Nepal. The main focus is on whether the impacts vary across seasons, altitudes and the types of crops. For this purpose, we employ a stochastic production function approach by controlling a novel set of season-wise climatic and geographical variables. The result shows that an increase in the variance of both temperature and rainfall has adverse effects on crop productions in general. On the other hand, a change in the mean levels of the temperature and rainfall induces heterogeneous impacts, which can be considered beneficial, harmful or negligible, depending on the altitudes and the kinds of crops. These results imply that adaptation strategies must be tailor-made in Nepalese agriculture, considering growing seasons, altitudes and the types of crops.     

Impacts of elevated CO2 on particulate and dissolved organic matter production: microcosm experiments using iron-deficient plankton communities in open subarctic waters

Response of phytoplankton to increasing CO₂ in seawater in terms of physiology and ecology is key to predicting changes in marine ecosystems. However, responses of natural plankton communities especially in the open ocean to higher CO₂ levels have not been fully examined. We conducted CO₂ manipulation experiments in the Bering Sea and the central subarctic Pacific, known as high nutrient and low chlorophyll regions, in summer 2007 to investigate the response of organic matter production in iron-deficient plankton communities to CO₂ increases. During the 14-day incubations of surface waters with natural plankton assemblages in microcosms under multiple pCO₂ levels, the dynamics of particulate organic carbon (POC) and nitrogen (PN), and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and phosphorus (DOP) were examined with the plankton community compositions. In the Bering site, net production of POC, PN, and DOP relative to net chlorophyll-a production decreased with increasing pCO₂. While net produced POC:PN did not show any CO₂-related variations, net produced DOC:DOP increased with increasing pCO₂. On the other hand, no apparent trends for these parameters were observed in the Pacific site. The contrasting results observed were probably due to the different plankton community compositions between the two sites, with plankton biomass dominated by large-sized diatoms in the Bering Sea versus ultra-eukaryotes in the Pacific Ocean. We conclude that the quantity and quality of the production of particulate and dissolved organic matter may be altered under future elevated CO₂ environments in some iron-deficient ecosystems, while the impacts may be negligible in some systems.     

Discovery of an ancient tsunami deposit in coastal sequences of southwest Japan: Verification of a large historic tsunami

Abstract A tsunamigenic sand layer is present in coastal sequences of the Masuda Plain, southwest Japan. The radiometric age of the layer has been estimated at 930 ± 80 years BP. It is proposed that the deposit is the product of a large historic tsunami believed to have occurred in the Japan Sea on 16 June 1026 AD.     

Geochemical behaviour of iron and manganese ions in the Ningyo-Toge uranium deposit district, southwest Japan

The Ningyo-Toge uranium deposit is one of the typical sedimentary uranium deposits in Japan. In general, during weathering, U is removed from the basal granite through underground water. The underground water in this area is rich in U, and has a comparatively high concentration of Fe and Mn.

In this area, three types of Fe minerals can be recognized in different modes of occurrence: (1) in the oxide zone brownish Fe-hydroxide mineral with ferric ion, i.e. goethite (-FeOOH); (2) in the reduced zone of the mine gallery pale-blue Fe-hydroxide mineral with some ferrous ion, i.e. lepidocrocite (γ-FeOOH); and (3) Fe-sulphate minerals such as melanterite (FeSO₄·7H₂O), etc. Some uranyl sulphate minerals, uranopilite and zippeite, are closely associated with these Fe-sulphate minerals. Under weakly alkaline conditions of the oxidizing environment, Mn-hydroxide (MnOOH) coexists with goethite as alternative thin laminae with shale, or coprecipitates resembling a marine Mn nodule, in the size of 0.5 cm in diameter. Radioactive anomalies have been recognized frequently for these Mn sediments due to absorption of Ra by the sediments.     

Fast practical evaluation of soil–structure interaction of embedded structures

A simple and fast evaluation method of soil–structure interaction (SSI) effects of embedded structures is presented via a cone model. The impedances and the effective input motions at the bottom of an embedded foundation are evaluated by means of the cone model. Those quantities are transformed exactly to the corresponding values at the top of the foundation. The evaluated quantities are combined with the super-structure at the top of the foundation. The transfer function amplitude of the interstory drift of a single-degree-of-freedom super-structure is computed for various cases, i.e. no SSI, SSI without embedment, SSI with shallow embedment, SSI with deep embedment. Soil properties are also varied to investigate in more detail the SSI effects of embedded structures. It is found that, while the transfer function amplitude is reduced by the increase of embedment in general, the characteristics of the transfer function amplitude for a very small ground shear wave velocity and large embedment are irregular and complicated.     

Effects of alkali and alkaline-earth cations on the high-pressure sound velocities of aluminosilicate glasses

Physics and Chemistry of Minerals - A black tourmaline sample from Seagull batholith (Yukon Territory, Canada) was established to be a schorl with concentrations of Fe2+ among the highest currently...     

Seasonal barotropic sea surface height fluctuation in relation to regional ocean mass variation

A consistency between seasonal fluctuation of actual sea surface height (SSH) and those caused by mass and density variations in gyre-scale regions is examined. The SSH obtained from satellite altimetry (altimetric SSH) is adopted as the actual SSH. SSH caused by mass variation (mass-related SSH) is simulated using a barotropic global ocean model forced by water flux, wind stress and surface pressure. SSH caused by density variation (steric SSH) is calculated from water density profile, i.e. temperature and salinity profiles. The model SSH well represents mass-related SSH for gyre-scale regional means, and seasonal fluctuation of the altimetric SSH corrected for the model SSH is similar to that of steric SSH above a pressure level larger than 300 dbar. The results indicate that the mass-related SSH does not much respond to the baroclinic adjustment to the seasonally varying wind stress curl. The mass-related SSH forced by wind stress and surface pressure should be accounted for regional evaluation, though it is not necessary for global mean evaluation. Detection of steric SSH from altimetric SSH would be useful for assimilation approaches in which the altimetric SSH is treated as the variable reflecting subsurface temperature and salinity.     

Production of the Blood Pressure Lowing Peptides from Brown Alga （ Undaria pinnatifida ）

Brown alga （ Undaria pinnatifida） was treated with alginate lyase and hydrolyzed using 17 kinds of proteases and the inhibitory activity of the hydrolysates for the angiotensin-I-converting enzyme （ACE） was measured. Four hydrolysates with potent ACE-inhibitory activity were administered singly and orally to spontaneously hypertensive rats （SHRs）. The systolic blood pressure of SHRs decreases significantly after single oral administration of the brown alga hydrolysates by pro- tease S ＇ Amano＇ （from Bacillus stearothermophilus） at the concentration of 10 （mg protein） （kg body weight）^ - 1. In the 17 weeks of feeding experiment, 7-week-old SHRs were fed standard diet supplemented with the brown alga hydrolysates for 10 weeks. In SHRs fed 1.0 and 0.1% brown alga hydrolysates, elevating of systolic bloodpressure was significantly suppressed for 7 weeks. To elucidate the active components, the brown alga hydrolysates were fractionated by 1-butanol extraction and HPLC on a reverse-phase column. Seven kinds of ACE-inhibitory peptides were isolated and identified by amino acid composition analysis, sequence analysis, and LC-MS with the results Val-Tyr, Ile-Tyr, Ala-Trp, Phe-Tyr, Val-Trp, Ile-Trp, and Leu-Trp. Each peptide was determined to have an antihypertensive effect after a single oral administration in SHRs. The brown alga hydrolysates were also confirmed to decrease the blood pressure in humans.