A STUDY ON ECONOMIC DAMAGE FOR TOURISM IN KYOTO CITY BY EARTHQUAKE DISASTER

As a typical historic and touristic city of Japan, Kyoto City with a total of 14 UNESCO world heritage sites, and more than 2,000 shrines and temples, attracts annually about 50 million tourists from Japan and overseas. However, because of the disaster of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 and the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 which both gave serious damage to Japan, the tourism sector of Kyoto City was impacted by the obvious decrease in the number of tourists. In this study focusing on the two disaster cases of Kyoto City, we estimated the amount of economic damage to the tourism sector, which consists of direct damage from decreasing tourism activities and indirect damage from influences on the regional economy caused by decreases in tourism consumption, which was estimated by the input-output analysis. Then from the analysis of decreasing tourists and estimation of the results, we considered factors whichhave impacted tourism activities and the regional economy

Long-Read-Resolved, Ecosystem-Wide Exploration of Nucleotide and Structural Microdiversity of Lake Bacterioplankton Genomes

環境微生物のゲノム多様性を高解像度に検出 --「似て非なるゲノム」から生物多様性の源泉に迫る--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Same same but different. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-09-22.Reconstruction of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) has become a fundamental approach in microbial ecology. However, a MAG is hardly complete and overlooks genomic microdiversity because metagenomic assembly fails to resolve microvariants among closely related genotypes. Aiming at understanding the universal factors that drive or constrain prokaryotic genome diversification, we performed an ecosystem-wide high-resolution metagenomic exploration of microdiversity by combining spatiotemporal (2 depths × 12 months) sampling from a pelagic freshwater system, high-quality MAG reconstruction using long- and short-read metagenomic sequences, and profiling of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and structural variants (SVs) through mapping of short and long reads to the MAGs, respectively. We reconstructed 575 MAGs, including 29 circular assemblies, providing high-quality reference genomes of freshwater bacterioplankton. Read mapping against these MAGs identified 100 to 101, 781 SNVs/Mb and 0 to 305 insertions, 0 to 467 deletions, 0 to 41 duplications, and 0 to 6 inversions for each MAG. Nonsynonymous SNVs were accumulated in genes potentially involved in cell surface structural modification to evade phage recognition. Most (80.2%) deletions overlapped with a gene coding region, and genes of prokaryotic defense systems were most frequently (>8% of the genes) overlapped with a deletion. Some such deletions exhibited a monthly shift in their allele frequency, suggesting a rapid turnover of genotypes in response to phage predation. MAGs with extremely low microdiversity were either rare or opportunistic bloomers, suggesting that population persistency is key to their genomic diversification. The results concluded that prokaryotic genomic diversification is driven primarily by viral load and constrained by a population bottleneck

A Participatory Evacuation Map Making Towards Sustainable Urban Heritage Kotagede, Yogyakarta

This research aims at development of Participatory Evacuation Map Making (PEMM) for Kotagede, Yogyakarta – Indonesia. The research area is one of an important cultural heritage sites in Indonesia which is subjected towards earthquake hazard. The preliminary observation revealed that the area is a densely populated area, which characterized by dense wooden building structure, narrow street and minimum information of evacuation route which increase their vulnerability potentials. This leads to the idea of developing the PEMM to improve their awareness and preparedness during disaster events and creates sustainable condition for local livelihood security. The method develops within this research is actually a lesson learn from Ritsumeikan University, that has developed CSR for integration disaster management into heritage sites at Kyoto Prefecture. Their CSR covers several activities such as developing disaster information via vending machine and tourism map. Since Yogyakarta and Kyoto are engaged in “Sister City Development Program”, hereafter Universitas Gadjah Mada tries to do similar thing. Map making is an alternative prior to community experience in map making is rather frequent compare to vending machine habit. The preliminary finding of this research indicates that the Kotagede community has been involved in several map making activity, such as “Green Map” and “Rehabilitation Sites Map”.  However, they have not yet any experience to create any map which includes information such as evacuation route, fire extinguisher, shelter information center and important meeting points. An improved critics from this research is to include meeting points level. As we all aware off, each meeting point have significant carrying capacity, thereby in the future a research on similar topics should add level and or category of meeting points. This is an important steppingstone for the research to conduct further research

The Integration of Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction Practices through Scientific Knowledge: Cases from Mentawai Islands, Indonesia

This study explores the importance of indigenous knowledge for everyday practices of disaster risk reduction and response. Many existing studies have highlighted the need to integrate such knowledge with modern science. Based on ethnographic research in indigenous communities in the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, this study explores the categorization of indigenous knowledge in the integration process. To that end, primary data were collected through in-depth interviews while secondary data were collected from relevant documents, including books, articles, websites and government and NGO reports. The findings indicate that indigenous knowledge is acquired through long observation and interaction with disasters. Although some of this knowledge is based on successes in other localities, some indigenous knowledge is completely local, homogenous and shared among community members. It was also established that indigenous knowledge can be meaningfully organized into a number of categories, and that indigenous knowledge of a technical nature is more likely to be integrated with scientific knowledge. The research was exploratory and approached indigenous knowledge issues from the point of view of indigenous communities themselves. This approach should be replicated and expanded in other indigenous communities

A STUDY ON EVACUATION SIMULATION FOR GUIDING TOURISTS IN HIMEJI CASTLE BASED ON A SURVEY OF TOURISTS’ INTENTIONS IN EVACUATION AFTER EARTHQUAKE

Many tourists tend to visit historic areas. Nevertheless, their knowledge about these areas, disaster prevention, and evacuation is not sufficient. Japan has met with several large-scale disasters, namely the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, and will potentially face the Nankai Trough Quake in the future. This paper, based on a survey of tourists’ intentions in evacuation after an earthquake in Himeji castle, shows an evacuation simulation and the measures for supporting tourists’ evacuation. Himeji Castle, the area investigated by this study, is one of the world heritage sites in Japan. First, this study revealed decision-making rules and used these to categorize tourists. This paper investigated the sources of information that tourists consider before starting evacuation. According to the results of the questionnaire survey, four groups were categorized by analytic hierarchy process and cluster analysis. As a result, many tourists set a high value on information from sign boards and staff of the Himeji castle before starting evacuation. Next, in a similar manner, using analytic hierarchy process, this survey found that many tourists consider information from signboard and staff when choosing evacuation routes, and the respondents were categorized into four groups using cluster analysis. Second, this study developed an evacuation simulation taking into account the tourists’ intentions about evacuation. This study used SOARS, Spot Oriented Agent Role Simulator, as a simulation platform and adopted a Spot-Link type model. Third, this study simulated six cases that have different evacuee flows near “Bizen-gate” and routes in sightseeing, and evaluated them by transition of the number of evacuees who were able to reach an evacuation area and the number of evacuees who could not move because of bottlenecks. As a result, we found two effective measures for guiding tourists

ECOMICS: A Web-Based Toolkit for Investigating the Biomolecular Web in Ecosystems Using a Trans-omics Approach

Ecosystems can be conceptually thought of as interconnected environmental and metabolic systems, in which small molecules to macro-molecules interact through diverse networks. State-of-the-art technologies in post-genomic science offer ways to inspect and analyze this biomolecular web using omics-based approaches. Exploring useful genes and enzymes, as well as biomass resources responsible for anabolism and catabolism within ecosystems will contribute to a better understanding of environmental functions and their application to biotechnology. Here we present ECOMICS, a suite of web-based tools for ECosystem trans-OMICS investigation that target metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, and meta-metabolomic systems, including biomacromolecular mixtures derived from biomass. ECOMICS is made of four integrated webtools. E-class allows for the sequence-based taxonomic classification of eukaryotic and prokaryotic ribosomal data and the functional classification of selected enzymes. FT2B allows for the digital processing of NMR spectra for downstream metabolic or chemical phenotyping. Bm-Char allows for statistical assignment of specific compounds found in lignocellulose-based biomass, and HetMap is a data matrix generator and correlation calculator that can be applied to trans-omics datasets as analyzed by these and other web tools. This web suite is unique in that it allows for the monitoring of biomass metabolism in a particular environment, i.e., from macromolecular complexes (FT2DB and Bm-Char) to microbial composition and degradation (E-class), and makes possible the understanding of relationships between molecular and microbial elements (HetMap). This website is available to the public domain at: https://database.riken.jp/ecomics/

Utility of Discography as a Preoperative Diagnostic Tool for Intradural Lumbar Disc Herniation

Preoperative definitive diagnosis of intradural lumbar disc herniation (ILDH) is difficult despite the availability of various neuroradiological investigative tools. We present a case of ILDH diagnosed preoperatively by discography and computed tomography-discography (disco-CT).The patient was a 63-year-old man with acute excruciating right leg pain. Discography and disco-CT demonstrated leakage of the contrast medium into the intradural space. Based on these findings, a right L5 nerve root disturbance caused by ILDH was diagnosed. A right L5 hemi-laminectomy and a dorsal durotomy were performed. The herniated disc was carefully dissected and then completely removed. Three months after surgery, the patient had fully recovered. This report highlights the importance of making a definitive diagnosis of ILDH preoperatively for better surgical planning and improved clinical outcomes. Furthermore, discography and disco-CT are both useful preoperative diagnostic tools for the diagnosis of ILDH

Identification of effector candidate genes of Rhizoctonia solani AG-1 IA expressed during infection in Brachypodium distachyon

Rhizoctonia solani is a necrotrophic phytopathogen belonging to basidiomycetes. It causes rice sheath blight which inflicts serious damage in rice production. The infection strategy of this pathogen remains unclear. We previously demonstrated that salicylic acid-induced immunity could block R. solani AG-1 IA infection in both rice and Brachypodium distachyon. R. solani may undergo biotrophic process using effector proteins to suppress host immunity before necrotrophic stage. To identify pathogen genes expressed at the early infection process, here we developed an inoculation method using B. distachyon which enables to sample an increased amount of semi-synchronous infection hyphae. Sixty-one R. solani secretory effector-like protein genes (RsSEPGs) were identified using in silico approach with the publicly available gene annotation of R. solani AG-1 IA genome and our RNA-sequencing results obtained from hyphae grown on agar medium. Expression of RsSEPGs was analyzed at 6, 10, 16, 24, and 32 h after inoculation by a quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and 52 genes could be detected at least on a single time point tested. Their expressions showed phase-specific patterns which were classified into 6 clusters. The 23 RsSEPGs in the cluster 1-3 and 29 RsSEPGs in the cluster 4-6 are expected to be involved in biotrophic and necrotrophic interactions, respectively