Molecular evidence for life in the 3.5 billion year old Warrawoona chert

The biological origin of organic matter in the oldest siliceous sediments (cherts) is still debated. To address this issue, the insoluble organic matter (kerogen) was isolated from a chert of the Warrawoona group. The chemical structure of the kerogen was investigated through a combination of analytical techniques including solid-state ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance and pyrolysis. Although dominated by aromatic hydrocarbons, the pyrolysate comprises a homologous series of long chain aliphatic hydrocarbons characterized by odd-over-even carbon number predominance. This distribution is only consistent with a biological origin. As kerogen must be contemporaneous of the solidification of the chert, this observation should be regarded as an evidence for the presence of life on Earth, 3.5 By ago.     

Dinarides东南部跨界岩溶含水层的特性

Dinarides南部是世界上岩溶发育最强烈的地区之一,同时也是欧洲降水量最大的地区。区内碳酸盐岩沉积厚度大于300m,平均岩溶发育深度从250m 至350m,沿断裂发育的岩溶,甚至更深。地下水平均流速变化较大,从0.002 cm/s至55.2cm/s。地下水滞留时间很短,水位变化非常迅速,变幅高达312m。地下水位对强降雨的响应小于4小时。岩溶大泉的主要特征是管道出口深,最大最小流量变化大。区内发育的落水洞有成千上百个,其中一些落水洞排水能力超过100m3/s,规模巨大并被洪水暂时淹没的岩溶坡立谷闻名世界各地。泉水天然流量和野生动物生存环境的改变,特别是当地特有物种的破坏,已经成为新近许多岩溶工程项目的焦点议题。由于该区极其复杂的水文地理和政治环境,不同国度间的跨界含水层似乎是一个非常敏感的问题。      

杭州城市生活质量的定量评价

以乡镇、街道为基本空间统计单元,选取人口密度、住宅基准地价、大专以上学历人口比重为社会经济指标,建设用地比重、NDVI、地表温度为生物物理指标,采用主成分分析和GIS叠加法,定量评价了杭州城市生活质量的空间分布状况。结果表明：NDVI和地表温度 (相关系数r = -0.63)、城镇用地比重 (相关系数r = -0.83) 呈明显的负相关,地表温度和城镇建设用地是影响杭州“绿色环境”两个的最重要因素。NDVI和住宅基准地价 (r = -0.66)、大学毕业生比例 (相关系数r = -0.59)、人口密度 (相关系数r = -0.29) 也呈较明显的负相关,“绿色环境”并未成为高学历人群和高收入家庭的主要决定因素,较繁华或较便利地段仍是高学历人群和高收入家庭选择居住环境的首要选择。高生活质量值 (前20%) 区域主要位于分布于城市中心区,即杭州上城区、下城区及西湖区的部分单元,而郊区的生活质量相对较低。     

Local government, local economic development and quality of life in Poland

The establishment of local self-government was a key part of the post-1989 transformation in East and Central Europe. Local government in both Western and East and Central Europe has increasingly been expected to play a role in local economic development (LED). Local government is one important agent in the complex processes of building 'institutional thickness' to ensure the development of local economies and the quality of life of inhabitants. This paper presents the results of a national postal questionnaire survey of the LED role of the lowest level of local self-government in Poland, the gmina or commune. The paper establishes a baseline of knowledge regarding: the local economic problems faced by communes; their attitudinal, strategic and organisational responses; and the main factors which are hindering the communes' LED role. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Upper Adriatic borderland: From conflict to harmony

The paper presents an overview of the Upper Adriatic as a contact area between different cultural, social, economic and political entities, producing potential conflicts in the last century. The first part of the 20th century represented a classic example of geopolitical conflict through two World Wars and their related Peace Conferences that deeply impacted the region. Conflicts arising from the mid-century solution of the Trieste question transformed the Upper Adriatic into a laboratory of contemporary political geographic transformation. Changing geopolitical patterns have also modified the political, social and ethnic construction of the Upper Adriatic. The process of creating new international boundaries in the region ended in 1991 with the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. Through these geopolitical transformations in the Upper Adriatic, new political geographic attitudes evolved. Early on, Ratzel's geopolitical principles of defining borders as power barometers between neighbors dominated. More recently, attitudes have reflected modern integrative ideas with a focus on looking for harmony and the elimination of international conflicts. Greater attention has thus been given to the political geography of `everyday life', inter-ethnic relations, and cross-border contacts. Hence, `new' borderlands of the Upper Adriatic are more receptive to integration because they seek to overcome conflicts caused by the division of traditionally homogeneous spaces as local level political and ideological hindrances disappear. The region divided among Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia is becoming a new and special type of European borderland in the new century.     

Grazing experiments and model simulations of the role of zooplankton in Phaeocystis food webs

A combined empirical and modelling study was conducted to further examine the potential importance of grazing by zooplankton in pelagic food webs in which Phaeocystis is a significant or dominant component. Laboratory experiments were designed to measure ingestion of Phaeocystis and other potential prey items which co-occur with Phaeocystis. Grazers included copepods and ciliates, and prey included Phaeocystis colonies and solitary cells, diatoms, ciliates, bacteria, and detritus. These data were expressed in the model currency of nitrogen units, and fit to hyperbolic tangent equations which included minimum prey thresholds. These equations and literature data were used to constrain a food web model whose purpose was to investigate trophic interactions rather than to mimic actual events. Nevertheless, the model output was similar to the general pattern and magnitude of development of Phaeocystis–diatom communities in some environments where they occur, e.g. north Norwegian waters. The model included three forms of nitrogen, three phytoplankton groups, bacteria, two zooplankton groups, and detritus, with detailed flows between compartments. An important component of the model was inclusion of variable prey preferences for zooplankton. The experiments and model simulations suggest several salient conclusions. Phaeocystis globosa colonies were eaten by a medium-sized copepod species, but ingestion appeared to be strongly dependent upon a proper size match between grazer and prey. If not, colonies were eaten little if at all. Phaeocystis solitary cells were ingested rapidly by ciliate microzooplankton, in agreement with prior literature observations. In contrast, detritus was eaten comparatively slowly by both ciliates and copepods. Both types of zooplankton exhibited apparent minimum prey thresholds below which grazing did not occur or was inconsequential. Model simulations implied that transitions between life cycle stages of Phaeocystis may potentially be important to phytoplankton–zooplankton interactions, and that relative rates of ingestion of Phaeocystis by various zooplankton may have significant impacts upon material fluxes through and out of Phaeocystis–diatom ecosystems. Indirect effects of trophic interactions appear to be equally significant as direct effects.     

Optimal Design of TMD Under Long-Term Nonstationary Wave Loading

—Traditionally,the use of a tuned mass damper(TMD)is to improve the surviability of the pri-mary structure under extraordinary loading environment while the design loading condition is describedby either a harmonic function or a stationary random process that can be fully characterized by a powerspectral density(PSD)function.Aiming at prolonging the fatigue life of an offshore platform,this studyconsiders an optimal design of TMD for the platform under long-term nonstationary loading due tolong-term random sea waves characterized by a probabilistic power spectral density(PPSD)function.Inprinciple,a PPSD could be derived based on numerous ordinary PSD functions;and each of them is treat-ed as realization of the corresponding PPSD.This study provides a theoretical development for theoptimal TMD design by minimizing the cost function to be the mean square value of the expectedlong-term response.A numerical example is presented to illustrate the developed design procedure.     

池养条件下军曹鱼早期发育阶段的生长和摄食

研究了军曹鱼(Rachycentron canadum)早期阶段的生长和摄食特性。结果表明:1~29日龄间,全长与日龄之间呈指数函数相关:y=3.6922e0.0995x(R=0.9913);体重与日龄间呈指数函数相关:y=0.0002e0.276x(R=0.9830);体重与全长之间为幂函数相关:y=5×10-6x2.786(R=0.9957);口径与日龄的关系为直线函数关系:y=0.1034x-0.0044(R=0.9939)。鱼苗早期阶段的生长速度存在显著性差异。军曹鱼早期鱼苗在3~6日龄时主要摄食原生动物、单轮幼虫和轮虫;7~12日龄时主要摄食桡足类无节幼体;13日龄以后主要摄食桡足类成体。仔、稚鱼阶段,军曹鱼的摄食活动呈现明显的昼夜节律,其饱满度指数均在12时前后出现最高峰,日摄食率分别为57.36%和14.78%。     

光学探生仪研制

光学探生仪主要用于在地震等灾害造成的残垣断壁中快速、准确地寻找被困人员。因此,在研制光学探生仪时,必须充分考虑灾害救助现场的恶劣工作条件和对仪器的特殊要求。本文首先简要介绍了光学探生仪研究的有关情况,然后对光学探生仪主要部件的设计、选型和实验进行了详细研究,探讨研制先进、实用的光学探生仪的途径。这对我国探生仪研制工作具有借鉴意义。