The regional impacts of climate change on coastal environments and the aquaculture of Japanese scallops in northeast Asia: case studies from Dalian,China, and Funka Bay,Japan

Climate changes affect coastal environments and aquaculture, threatening food security and economic growth. Japanese scallop (Mizuhopecten yessoensis) culture is economically important for the coastal communities of Dalian, China, and Funka Bay, Japan. In this study, we combined satellite remote-sensing data, in situ observations, and a suitable aquaculture site selection model to explore the interactions between marine environments and climate variability over a recent 10-year period (2003–2012). Our selection of appropriate zones in these two Far Eastern regions and our analyses of climatic event (Arctic Oscillation (AO), winter East Asian monsoon (EAM), and El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO)) and meteorological (precipitation, temperature, and wind) data allowed us to determine the impacts of climate change on regional coastal environments and prospects for scallop aquaculture. These analyses showed that AO and EAM strongly influenced the aquaculture areas on the Dalian coast through their effects on temperature during winter. We also determined that wind was the main driving force behind regional environmental changes during spring. Conversely, ocean conditions and suitable areas in Funka Bay changed rapidly relative to oceanic and atmospheric circulation. In Funka Bay, areas appropriate for scallop aquaculture and variations in chlorophyll-a concentration (which reflect the availability of algal food for scallops) were strongly correlated with ENSO, precipitation, and air temperature. These correlations demonstrate the influence of oceanic and atmospheric parameters on the productivity of scallop aquaculture in Funka Bay. Adaptation to oceanic and atmospheric changes should be considered when developing plans and management strategies for coastal scallop aquaculture in northeast Asia.     

Anodic Dissolution of Uranium Mononitride in Lithium Chloride-Potassium Chloride Eutectic Melt

Uranium-plutonium nitride is a candidate fuel for fast reactors, but its major drawback is ¹⁴C formation from natural nitrogen. One would probably have to use highly ¹⁵N-enriched nitrogen. A pyrochemical process with molten-salt electroreflning has been proposed as a means to increase the nuclear proliferation resistance of the fuel cycle. Molten-salt electroreflning could also be applied to nitride fuels to make possible the recycling of ¹⁵N. The anodic dissolution behavior of UN in LiCI-KCI melt was studied to provide the basis for a feasibility study of electroreflning of irradiated nitride fuels.     

Recognition of substrates by membrane potential of immobilized glucose oxidase membranes

The shifts in membrane potential, caused by the injection of glucose into a permeation cell, were measured using immobilized (entrapped) glucose oxidase membranes. No, pH change in the permeation cell was observed upon injection of glucose, but the shift in membrane potential was definitely detected. The shift in membrane potential was observed under nitrogen bubbling (in the absence of oxygen) using initially used enzyme membranes. It was, therefore, suggested that the shifts in membrane potential were not caused by an enzyme-substrate reaction, but by binding of the substrate to the enzyme, which indues a conformational change in the enzyme and leads to a change in charge density in the enzyme membrane. This mechanism is also supported by the fact that the shifts in membrane potential were observed upon injection of not only D-glucose but also L-glucose as reported in our previous study [J. Chem. Soc. Faraday Trans., 87 , 695 (1991)]. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Anodic characteristics of amorphous ternary palladium-phosphorus alloys containing ruthenium,rhodium, iridium,or platinum in a hot concentrated sodium chloride solution

Amorphous ternary palladium-based alloys containing platinum group metals as an additional element were prepared by rapid quenching from the molten state and their anodic characteristics were investigated in a 4 mol dm^?3 NaCl solution of pH 4 and 80° C. The amorphous alloys containing sufficient quantities of rhodium, platinum or iridium were passivated by anodic polarization and their corrosion rates at high current densities in the chlorine evolution region were extremely low. This fact was attributed to the formation of a highly protective passive film due to both the transformation to the amorphous structure and the addition of rhodium, platinum or indium. The electrocatalytic activities for chlorine evolution of amorphous alloys were higher than those of pure platinum group metals except palladium. In particular, the amorphous Pd₄₁Ir₄₀P₁₉ alloy had the desired stable, high electrocatalytic activity for chlorine evolution and the high overvoltage for oxygen evolution.     

Cost-Efficient Traffic Aggregation Employing Cross-Layer Shared Protection

Shared protection/restoration is a promising solution for reducing protection resources and is supported at each layer of the current multi-layer networks. Software-defined networking is expected to reduce equipment cost as well as operational cost by orchestrating these shared protection functionalities. However, although protection resource sharing improves link utilization, it sometimes increases the required equipment. Meanwhile, traffic re-aggregation at each layer is an important technique for low volume traffic to utilize the underlying link capacity more efficiently, but re-aggregation also makes it difficult to share protection resources with traffic at lower layers. In this paper, we present multi-layer network design strategy and method that reduce equipment cost by means of both traffic re-aggregation at each layer and protection resource sharing among multiple service traffic at different layers. The strategy first prioritizes traffic re-aggregation at each layer, and then maximally delegates shared protection to lower layers as long as it does not increase the required capacity at the lower layer. Evaluation results from the example three-layer networks confirm that the proposed method can effectively reduce equipment cost compared to the conventional design method. Cost reduction is achieved by leveraging shared protection functions at multiple layers.     

A content search system considering the activity and context of a mobile user

People routinely carry mobile devices in their daily lives and obtain a variety of information from the Internet in many different situations. In searching for information (content) with a mobile device, a user’s activity (e.g., moving or stationary) and context (e.g., commuting in the morning or going downtown in the evening) often change, and such changes can affect the user’s degree of concentration on his or her mobile device’s display and information needs. Therefore, a search system should provide the user with an amount of information suitable for the current activity and a type of information suitable for the current context. In this study, we present the design and implementation of a content search system that considers a mobile user’s activity and context, with the goal of reducing the user’s operation load for content search. The proposed system switches between two kinds of content search systems according to the user’s activity: the location-based content search system is activated when the user is stationary (e.g., standing and sitting), while a menu-based content search system is activated when the user is moving (e.g., walking). Both systems present information according to user context. The location-based system presents detailed information via menus and a map according to location-based categories. The menu-based system presents only a few options to enable users to get content easily. Through user experiments, we confirmed that participants could get desired information more easily with this system than with a commercial search system.     

Ergonomics solution for crossing collisions based on field assessment of visual environment at urban intersections in Japan

This paper aims to assess quantitatively the actual visual environment of uncontrolled urban downtown intersections in Japan in relation to frequently occurring crossing collisions and to discuss the safety countermeasures for them. In Field Study 1 dealing with direct visibility, our ultra-wide-angle photograph analysis revealed that most of the right/left-ward visible range at 11 intersections were insufficient to check safety, and the quality of direct visibility was closely associated with causing crossing collisions. The countermeasures to reduce a blind area were determined to be a top priority. In Field Study 2 dealing with indirect visibility, more than half of the 25 traffic convex mirrors had marked shortcomings for preventive safety, and ergonomics guidelines ensuring indirect visibility were proposed for installing traffic convex mirrors. Low-cost/low-technology-oriented countermeasures are highly recommended to obtain clear/sufficient images of crucial information satisfying drivers' requirements on traffic convex mirrors in accordance with those ergonomics guidelines was highly recommended. Crossing collisions could be prevented by improvement of poor direct and indirect visibility.     

Development of an epileptic seizure prediction algorithm using R–R intervals with self-attentive autoencoder

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that may affect the autonomic nervous system (ANS) from 15 to 20 min before seizure onset, and disturbances of ANS affect R–R intervals (RRI) on an electrocardiogram (ECG). This study aims to develop a machine learning algorithm for predicting focal epileptic seizures by monitoring R–R interval (RRI) data in real time. The developed algorithm adopts a self-attentive autoencoder (SA-AE), which is a neural network for time-series data. The results of applying the developed seizure prediction algorithm to clinical data demonstrated that it functioned well in most patients; however, false positives (FPs) occurred in specific participants. In a future work, we will investigate the causes of FPs and optimize the developing seizure prediction algorithm to further improve performance using newly added clinical data.

     

Ultra-fast microwave aided synthesis of gold nanocages and structural maneuver studies

Gold nanocages (AuNcgs) are well-studied,hollow,metallic nanostructures that have fascinated researchers in the fields of nanotechnology,materials science,photoelectronics,biotechnology,and medical science for the last decade.However,the time-consuming synthesis of AuNcgs has limited their widespread use in materials science and nano-biotechnology.A novel,ultra-fast,simple,and highly convenient method for the production of AuNcgs using microwave heating is demonstrated herein.This quick method of AuNcg synthesis requires mild laboratory conditions for large-scale production of AuNcgs.The microwave heating technique offers the advantage of precise mechanical control over the temperature and heating power,even for the shortest reaction period (i.e.,seconds).Microwave-synthesized AuNcgs were compared with conventionally synthesized AuNcgs.Structural maneuver studies employing the conventionally produced AuNcgs revealed the formation of screw dislocations and a shift in the lattice plane.Detailed characterization of the microwave-generated AuNcgs was performed using high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM),scanning electron microscopy (SEM),X-ray powder diffraction (XRD),and spectroscopic techniques.