Chapter 5 Changes in trade and economic structure during the past 25 years: have green growth, low carbon strategies made a signifi cant impact in Northeast Asia?

Edited by Fumikazu Yoshida and Akihisa MoriThis chapter made an empirical analysis on the change in the trade structures of environmental and pollution-intensive industries in Northeast Asia during the last 25 years. Both industries in South Korea and China have shifted to more export-oriented, in part due to China’s accession to the WTO. Green growth strategy has significantly increased export of goods related to renewable energy in South Korea while has ambiguous trade impacts in China. While Japan has been net exporter in both industries, its export surplus in environmental industry decreased gradually, implying Japan receives side effects of green growth strategy in South Korea and China

Observations of wild hunting behaviour and bioluminescence of a large deep-sea, eight-armed squid, Taningia danae

Our newly developed underwater high definition video camera system took the first live images of adults of the mesopelagic large squid, Taningia danae, between 240 and 940 m deep off Ogasawara Islands, western North Pacific. The resulting footage includes attacking and bioluminescence behaviours, and reveals that T. danae is far from the sluggish neutrally buoyant deep-sea squid previously suspected. It can actively swim both forward and backward freely by flapping its large muscular triangular fins and changes direction quickly through bending its flexible body. It can attain speeds of 2–2.5 m s−1 (7.2–9 km h−1) when attacking bait rigs. They emitted short bright light flashes from their large arm-tip photophores before final assault, which might act as a blinding flash for prey as well as a means of measuring target distance in a dark deep-sea environment. They also emitted long and short glows separated by intervals while wandering around the double torch lights attached to the bait rig, suggestive of potential courtship behaviours during mating

Fabrication of single-crystalline plasmonic nanostructures on transparent and flexible amorphous substrates

A new experimental technique is developed for producing a high-performance single-crystalline Ag nanostructure on transparent and flexible amorphous substrates for use in plasmonic sensors and circuit components. This technique is based on the epitaxial growth of Ag on a (001)-oriented single-crystalline NaCl substrate, which is subsequently dissolved in ultrapure water to allow the Ag film to be transferred onto a wide range of different substrates. Focused ion beam milling is then used to create an Ag nanoarray structure consisting of 200 cuboid nanoparticles with a side length of 160 nm and sharp, precise edges. This array exhibits a strong signal and a sharp peak in plasmonic properties and Raman intensity when compared with a polycrystalline Ag nanoarray

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF PADDY’S FARMING IN VARIOUS TYPES OF PADDY’S SEEDS IN INDONESIA

The increasing need for food along with increasing population is one of the problems that must be resolved by Indonesia nation. The government is trying to increase rice production and productivity by using certified seeds. Certified seeds is expected to affect technical efficiency of rice farming. The objectives of this studies are to analyze the level of technical efficiency and to identify the factors that influence the technical efficiency of rice farming in various types of main sources of rice seeds in Indonesia. The study uses secondary data that obtained from Central Bureau of Statistic (BPS) as a results from the 2014 Rice Plant Business Household Survey (SPD 2014). Data were analyzed using stochastic frontier. The results showed that the average technical efficiency level achieved by farmers in rice farming is 0,656 or less than 0,70 (<0,70) so it can be said that rice farming in Indonesia is still technically inefficient. Factors that affecting the technical efficiency of rice farming in various types of main sources of rice seeds in Indonesia were age, formal education, dummy participation of agricultural extension, and dummy certified seeds.  Keywords: certified seeds, rice farming, stochastic frontier analysis, technical efficiency, non-certified seed

Development of a method to rapidly assess resistance/susceptibility of Micro-Tom tomatoes to Tomato yellow leaf curl virus via agroinoculation of cotyledons

Objective: Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is one of the pathogens severely damaging tomato crops. Therefore, methods to treat or prevent TYLCV infection need to be developed. For this purpose, a method to conveniently and quickly assess infection of tomatoes by TYLCV is desired. In the present study, we established a quick method to evaluate TYLCV infection using cotyledons of Micro-Tom, a miniature tomato cultivar. Results: First, we constructed a binary plasmid harboring 1.5 copies of the TYLCV genome and transformed Agrobacterium with the plasmid. By injecting agroinoculum from the resulting transformant into the branches of Micro-Tom, we confirmed the susceptibility of Micro-Tom to TYLCV. To shorten the evaluation process of TYLCV infection further, we agroinoculated cotyledons of Micro-Tom 10 days after sowing seeds. We consistently observed typical symptoms of TYLCV infection on true leaves 10 days after agroinoculation. Molecular analysis detected TYLCV progeny DNA in all leaves demonstrating symptoms 6 days after agroinoculation. Therefore, our new protocol enabled assessment of TYLCV infection within 20 days after sowing seeds. Thus, agroinoculation of Micro-Tom cotyledons will accelerate the process of screening TYLCV-resistant Micro-Toms and enable screening of larger numbers of plants more quickly, contributing to the development of TYLCV-resistant tomatoes

Enrichment and Characterization of an Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaeon of Moderate Thermophilic Taumarchaeotal Group I.1a from Cattle Manure Compost

Poster Presentatio

Use of Procalcitonin in Patients on Chronic Hemodialysis: Procalcitonin Is Not Related with Increased Serum Calcitonin

Objectives. To investigate whether procalcitonin (PCT) could be useful for detecting bacterial infections in patients on hemodialysis (HD) and with increased calcitonin (CT). Methods. This prospective study included 42 males and 34 females on HD. The infection group consisted of 15 patients with proven bacterial infections; the other 61 patients were designated as the noninfection group. Serum C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (IL)-6, white blood cell (WBC) count, immature and total neutrophil (I/T) ratio, and CT were measured at the beginning of HD, and serum PCT levels at the beginning of HD and after HD. Results. The mean CT level in the both groups was apparently higher than that of nonchronic kidney disease. Significantly higher values between the infection and noninfection groups were seen for CRP, IL-6, WBC, I/T ratio, PCT, and CT. The PCT value of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.921, which was significantly higher than the values for CRP (0.853; P < 0.01), IL-6 (0.739; P < 0.01), WBC (0.692; P < 0.01), and I/T ratio (0.584; P < 0.01). Conclusions. PCT was useful marker of bacterial infection in patients on HD and with increased CT. PCT levels should be determined before HD

Development of a New Measurement Method to Evaluate the Physical Properties of Granules for Dry Powder Inhalation Produced by New Spouted Bed Type Binderless Granulator

The spouted bed type of binderless granulator is one of the most appropriate methods available for producing granules of dry powder inhalation (DPI) from cohesive fine powder. However the compressive strength of produced granule is too small to be measure by conventional method. In this work a new apparatus was developed to evaluate the strength of such a soft granule. Load and displacement curve of the granule were measured by new method of compressive strength measurement. To observe the compression process of the granule, photographs were taken with a microscopic camera. It was clarified that this measurement method was remarkably useful to evaluate the compressive strength of soft granule