Land Cover Change of Nagasaki City Associated with Natural Disasters by Using Remote Sensing Techniques

Natural disasters are inevitable and it is almost impossible to fully recover the damage caused by the disasters. However, it is possible to reduce the potential risk by developing disaster early warning strategies and to help in rehabilitation and post disaster reduction. Remote sensing technology has efficiently proven its usefulness, not only monitoring the disastrous events, but also to provide accurate and timely information well before the occurrence of disaster. This paper describes an analysis of land cover changes between 1986 and 2000, that have occurred in Nagasaki City over the past few decades. For this purpose, Nagasaki City was studied using Thematic Mapper (TM) data acquired by Landsat-5. Common and reputable unsupervised classification method, Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique (ISODATA) is used. From the over all result of study area, it is visible that regelated area is decreasing and urban land is increasing. This trend is especially clear in detailed analysis of typically developed areas as Tagonoura, Koebaru and Kaminoshima

Long-Term climate change commitment and reversibility: An EMIC intercomparison

This is the final version of the article. Available from the American Meteorological Society via the DOI in this record.This paper summarizes the results of an intercomparison project with Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) undertaken in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The focus is on long-term climate projections designed to 1) quantify the climate change commitment of different radiative forcing trajectories and 2) explore the extent to which climate change is reversible on human time scales. All commitment simulations follow the four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and their extensions to year 2300. MostEMICs simulate substantial surface air temperature and thermosteric sea level rise commitment following stabilization of the atmospheric composition at year-2300 levels. The meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is weakened temporarily and recovers to near-preindustrial values in most models for RCPs 2.6-6.0. The MOC weakening is more persistent for RCP8.5. Elimination of anthropogenic CO2 emissions after 2300 results in slowly decreasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. At year 3000 atmospheric CO2 is still at more than half its year-2300 level in all EMICs forRCPs 4.5-8.5. Surface air temperature remains constant or decreases slightly and thermosteric sea level rise continues for centuries after elimination ofCO2 emissions in allEMICs.Restoration of atmosphericCO2 fromRCPto preindustrial levels over 100-1000 years requires large artificial removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and does not result in the simultaneous return to preindustrial climate conditions, as surface air temperature and sea level response exhibit a substantial time lag relative to atmospheric CO2. © 2013 American Meteorological Society.KZ and AJW acknowledge support from the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant Program. AJW acknowledges support from NSERC's G8 Research Councils Initiative on Multilateral Research Funding Program. AVE and IIM were supported by the President of Russia Grant 5467.2012.5, by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and by the programs of the Russian Academy of Sciences. EC, TF, HG, and GPB acknowledge support from the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. FJ, RS, and MS acknowledge support by the Swiss National Science Foundation and by the European Project CARBOCHANGE (Grant 264879), which received funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013). PBH and NRE acknowledge support from EU FP7 Grant ERMITAGE 265170

Carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 models, and their comparison to CMIP5 models

Abstract. Results from the fully-, biogeochemically-, and radiatively-coupled simulations in which CO2 increases at a rate of 1 % per year (1pctCO2) from its pre-industrial value are analyzed to quantify the magnitude of two feedback parameters which characterize the coupled carbon-climate system. These feedback parameters quantify the response of ocean and terrestrial carbon pools to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the resulting change in global climate. The results are based on eight comprehensive Earth system models from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and eleven models from the sixth CMIP (CMIP6). The comparison of model results from two CMIP phases shows that, for both land and ocean, the model mean values of the feedback parameters and their multi-model spread has not changed significantly across the two CMIP phases. The absolute values of feedback parameters are lower for land with models that include a representation of nitrogen cycle. The sensitivity of feedback parameters to the three different ways in which they may be calculated is shown and, consistent with existing studies, the most relevant definition is that calculated using results from the fully- and biogeochemically-coupled configurations. Based on these two simulations simplified expressions for the feedback parameters are obtained when the small temperature change in the biogeochemically-coupled simulation is ignored. Decomposition of the terms of these simplified expressions for the feedback parameters allows identification of the reasons for differing responses among ocean and land carbon cycle models. </jats:p

Use of wild bird surveillance, human case data and GIS spatial analysis for predicting spatial distributions of West Nile Virus in Greece

West Nile Virus (WNV) is the causative agent of a vector-borne, zoonotic disease with a worldwide distribution. Recent expansion and introduction of WNV into new areas, including southern Europe, has been associated with severe disease in humans and equids, and has increased concerns regarding the need to prevent and control future WNV outbreaks. Since 2010, 524 confirmed human cases of the disease have been reported in Greece with greater than 10% mortality. Infected mosquitoes, wild birds, equids, and chickens have been detected and associated with human disease. The aim of our study was to establish a monitoring system with wild birds and reported human cases data using Geographical Information System (GIS). Potential distribution of WNV was modelled by combining wild bird serological surveillance data with environmental factors (e.g. elevation, slope, land use, vegetation density, temperature, precipitation indices, and population density). Local factors including areas of low altitude and proximity to water were important predictors of appearance of both human and wild bird cases (Odds Ratio = 1,001 95%CI = 0,723–1,386). Using GIS analysis, the identified risk factors were applied across Greece identifying the northern part of Greece (Macedonia, Thrace) western Greece and a number of Greek islands as being at highest risk of future outbreaks. The results of the analysis were evaluated and confirmed using the 161 reported human cases of the 2012 outbreak predicting correctly (Odds = 130/31 = 4,194 95%CI = 2,841–6,189) and more areas were identified for potential dispersion in the following years. Our approach verified that WNV risk can be modelled in a fast cost-effective way indicating high risk areas where prevention measures should be implemented in order to reduce the disease incidence

Trypanosoma cruzi Gene Expression in Response to Gamma Radiation

Trypanosoma cruzi is an organism highly resistant to ionizing radiation. Following a dose of 500 Gy of gamma radiation, the fragmented genomic DNA is gradually reconstructed and the pattern of chromosomal bands is restored in less than 48 hours. Cell growth arrests after irradiation but, while DNA is completely fragmented, RNA maintains its integrity. In this work we compared the transcriptional profiles of irradiated and non-irradiated epimastigotes at different time points after irradiation using microarray. In total, 273 genes were differentially expressed; from these, 160 were up-regulated and 113 down-regulated. We found that genes with predicted functions are the most prevalent in the down-regulated gene category. Translation and protein metabolic processes, as well as generation of precursor of metabolites and energy pathways were affected. In contrast, the up-regulated category was mainly composed of obsolete sequences (which included some genes of the kinetoplast DNA), genes coding for hypothetical proteins, and Retrotransposon Hot Spot genes. Finally, the tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase 1, a gene involved in double-strand DNA break repair process, was up-regulated. Our study demonstrated the peculiar response to ionizing radiation, raising questions about how this organism changes its gene expression to manage such a harmful stress

The role of peptides in bone healing and regeneration: A systematic review

Background: Bone tissue engineering and the research surrounding peptides has expanded significantly over the last few decades. Several peptides have been shown to support and stimulate the bone healing response and have been proposed as therapeutic vehicles for clinical use. The aim of this comprehensive review is to present the clinical and experimental studies analysing the potential role of peptides for bone healing and bone regeneration. Methods: A systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Articles presenting peptides capable of exerting an upregulatory effect on osteoprogenitor cells and bone healing were included in the study. Results: Based on the available literature, a significant amount of experimental in vitro and in vivo evidence exists. Several peptides were found to upregulate the bone healing response in experimental models and could act as potential candidates for future clinical applications. However, from the available peptides that reached the level of clinical trials, the presented results are limited. Conclusion: Further research is desirable to shed more light into the processes governing the osteoprogenitor cellular responses. With further advances in the field of biomimetic materials and scaffolds, new treatment modalities for bone repair will emerge