Towards an integrated environmental assessment for wetland and catchment management

This paper develops a decision support system for evaluation of wetland ecosystem management strategy and examines its, so far partial, application in a case study of an important complex coastal wetland known as the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, in the east of England, UK. Most managed ecosystems are complex and often poorly understood hierarchically organized systems. Capturing the range of relevant impacts on natural and human systems under different management options will be a formidable challenge. Biodiversity has a hierarchical structure which ranges from the ecosystem and landscape level, through the community level and down to the population and genetic level. There is a need to develop methodologies for the practicable detection of ecosystem change, as well as the evaluation of different ecological functions. What is also required is a set of indicators (environmental, social and economic) which facilitate the detection of change in ecosystems suffering stress and shock and highlight possible drivers of the change process. A hierarchical classification of ecological indicators of sustainability would need to take into account existing interactions between different organization levels, from species to ecosystems. Effects of environmental stress are expressed in different ways at different levels of biological organization and effects at one level can be expected to impact other levels, often in unpredictable ways. The management strategy, evaluation methodologies and indicators adopted should also assess on sustainability grounds whether any given management option is supporting, or reducing, the diversity of functions which are providing stakeholders with the welfare benefits they require.     

Degradation of crude oil in a contaminated tidal flat area and the resilience of bacterial community

Crude oil spills, Hebei Spirit in South Korea, is considered as one of the worst environmental disasters of the region. Our understanding on activation of oil-degrading bacteria and resilience of microbial community in oil contaminated sites are limited due to scarcity of such event. In the present study, tidal flat sediment contaminated by the oil spill were investigated for duration of 13 months to identify temporal change in microbial community and functional genes responsible for PAH-degradation. The results showed predominance of previously known oil-degrading genera, such as Cycloclasticus, Alcanivorax, and Thalassolituus, displaying significant increase within first four months of the accident. The disturbance caused by the oil spill altered the microbial community and its functional structures, but they were almost restored to the original state after 13 months. Present study demonstrated high detoxification capacity of indigenous bacterial populations in the tidal flat sediments and its resilience of microbial community.     

Antiproliferative and apoptosis-inducing potential of 3β-hydroxy-△5-steroidal congeners purified from the soft coral Dendronephthya putteri

The exploration and identification of antiproliferative phytochemicals have received increased attention in medicinal chemistry.In particular,research focused on the toxicology of marine natural products has increased in recent years.Terpenoids,among many secondary metabolites,have been demonstrated to act as effective anticancer agents.Soft corals,a group of marine invertebrates,produce a variety of terpenoids with biofunctional properties.The current study presents the extraction,purification,and identification of sterol congeners from the soft coral Dendronephthya putteri.The method involves 50%chloro form-methanol extraction,polar column fractionation,and analy sis through GC-MS~n.Do se-dependent antiproliferative activity was observed within the sterol-rich fraction(DPCMH 2-4),which consisted of3β-hydroxy-A5-steroidal congeners.This fraction inhibited the growth of HL-60 and MCF-7 cells with IC_(50) values of 25.27±1.43 and 22.81±0.15 μg/mL,respectively.Apoptotic body formation,DNA damage,cell cycle arrest,and apoptotic cell signaling pathway activation were also observed,reinforcing the dosedependent antiproliferative and apoptosis-inducing activity of 3β-hydroxy-A5-steroidal congeners.To our knowledge,this is the first report of anticancer agent identification from the soft coral D.putteri.Based on the observations,these steroidal congeners are promising candidates for the development of anticancer drugs.     

The Interactive Effects of Elevated CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> and Ammonium Enrichment on the Physiological Performances of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Saccharina japonica</Emphasis> (Laminariales,Phaeophyta)

Environmental challenges such as ocean acidification and eutrophication influence the physiology of kelp species. We investigated their interactive effects on Saccharina japonica (Laminariales, Phaeophyta) under two pH conditions [Low, 7.50; High (control), 8.10] and three NH ₄ ⁺ concentrations (Low, 4; Medium, 60; High, 120 μM). The degree of variation of pH values in the culture medium and inhibition rate of photosynthetic oxygen evolution by acetazolamide were affected by pH treatments. Relative growth rates, carbon, nitrogen, and the C:N ratio in tissue samples were influenced by higher concentrations of NH ₄ ⁺ . Rates of photosynthetic oxygen evolution were enhanced under elevated CO₂ or NH ₄ ⁺ conditions, independently, but these two factors did not show an interactive effect. However, rates of NH ₄ ⁺ uptake were influenced by the interactive effect of increased CO₂ under elevated NH ₄ ⁺ treatment. Although ocean acidification and eutrophication states had an impact on physiological performance, chlorophyll fluorescence was not affected by those conditions. Our results indicated that the physiological reactions by this alga were influenced to some extent by a rise in the levels of CO₂ and NH ₄ ⁺ . Therefore, we expect that the biomass accumulation of S. japonica may well increase under future scenarios of ocean acidification and eutrophication.     

The planet formation imager

The Planet Formation Imager (PFI, www.planetformationimager.org) is a next-generation infrared interferometer array with the primary goal of imaging the active phases of planet formation in nearby star forming regions. PFI will be sensitive to warm dust emission using mid-infrared capabilities made possible by precise fringe tracking in the near-infrared. An L/M band combiner will be especially sensitive to thermal emission from young exoplanets (and their disks) with a high spectral resolution mode to probe the kinematics of CO and H₂O gas. In this paper, we give an overview of the main science goals of PFI, define a baseline PFI architecture that can achieve those goals, point at remaining technical challenges, and suggest activities today that will help make the Planet Formation Imager facility a reality.     

The analysis of pollutant migration through soil with linear hereditary time-dependent sorption

This paper presents a non-equilibrium sorption dispersion–advection transport model for the analysis of pollutant migration through soil. The formulation involves a convolution integral of the product of the rate of change of concentration and a time-dependent sorption coefficient, suggesting an integral transformation of the governing equations. This facilitates the primary purpose of this paper, to incorporate a time-dependent solute sorption process into a computationally efficient and accurate semi-analytic Laplace transform method. An application of the non-equilibrium sorption model for backfiguring dispersion–advection equation parameters from experimental data is presented, and the implications of non-equilibrium sorption on the design of landfill liners is explored by means of an illustrative example.     

中国之雷雨

第一章雷雨之定义成因及分类第一节雷雨之定义降雨而同时有雷电现象者,谓之雷雨。故有雨,纵甚急暴,但若无闪电及雷声者,不得谓之雷雨;反之,如沙漠旋风、森林大火、火山爆发等,只有雷电交作而无雨者,亦不得称曰雷雨。但雷电现象,并非雷雨之因,实为雷雨之果,此可由下列事实证明之。 (一)一定高度间之电位差,全球各处几皆相等,然雷雨之数目与     

ARD generation and corrosion potential of exposed roadside rockmass at Boeun and Mujoo,South Korea

Acid rock drainage (ARD) is a longstanding problem often associated with the resulting corrosion due to the acidity generated from sulfidic oxidation. To evaluate characteristics of ARD and corrosion, samples from the road side rock mass of Boeun and Mujoo were analysed using X-ray diffraction, acid/base accounting and Leaching tests. The results indicated that many samples had a pyritic origin and can be regarded as acid-generating rocks. The Leaching test showed that the average pH of the leachates of samples from both Boeun and Mujoo were moderately acidic, ranging from 3 to 4. Interestingly, as acidity increases from pH 4, the SO₄₋, Fe, Al and Mg concentrations increase abnormally. Samples from roadside slope of Mujoo showed high corrosive potential. Maximum sulfide oxidation rate of a sample taken from Mujoo was as high as 5,166 mg/kg/week.