From urban to national heat island: The effect of anthropogenic heat output on climate change in high population industrial countries

The project presented here sought to determine whether changes in anthropogenic thermal emission can have a measurable effect on temperature at the national level, taking Japan and Great Britain as type examples. Using energy consumption as a proxy for thermal emission, strong correlations (mean r2 = 0.90 and 0.89, respectively) are found between national equivalent heat output (HO) and temperature above background levels Δt averaged over 5‐ to 8‐yr periods between 1965 and 2013, as opposed to weaker correlations for CMIP5 model temperatures above background levels Δmt (mean r2 = 0.52 and 0.10). It is clear that the fluctuations in Δt are better explained by energy consumption than by present climate models, and that energy consumption can contribute to climate change at the national level on these timescales

Branching mechanism of intergranular crack propagation in three dimensions

We investigate the process of slow intergranular crack propagation by the finite element method model, and show that branching is induced by partial arresting of crack front owing to the geometrical randomness of grain boundaries. A possible scenario for branching instability of crack propagation in disordered continuum medium is also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Phys.Rev.E; v2:corrected typos v3: final version to be publishe

G-language genome analysis environment with REST and SOAP web service interfaces

G-language genome analysis environment (G-language GAE) contains more than 100 programs that focus on the analysis of bacterial genomes, including programs for the identification of binding sites by means of information theory, analysis of nucleotide composition bias and the distribution of particular oligonucleotides, calculation of codon bias and prediction of expression levels, and visualization of genomic information. We have provided a collection of web services for these programs by utilizing REST and SOAP technologies. The REST interface, available at http://rest.g-language.org/, provides access to all 145 functions of the G-language GAE. These functions can be accessed from other online resources. All analysis functions are represented by unique universal resource identifiers. Users can access the functions directly via the corresponding universe resource locators (URLs), and biological web sites can readily embed the functions by simply linking to these URLs. The SOAP services, available at http://www.g-language.org/wiki/soap/, provide language-independent programmatic access to 77 analysis programs. The SOAP service Web Services Definition Language file can be readily loaded into graphical clients such as the Taverna workbench to integrate the programs with other services and workflows

Osteoblast interactions within a biomimetic apatite microenvironment.

Numerous reports have shown that accelerated apatites can mediate osteoblastic differentiation in vitro and bone formation in vivo. However, how cells interact within the apatite microenvironment remains largely unclear, despite the vast literature available today. In response, this study evaluates the in vitro interactions of a well-characterized osteoblast cell line (MC3T3-E1) with the apatite microenvironment. Specifically, cell attachment, spreading, and viability were evaluated in the presence and absence of serum proteins. Proteins were found to be critical in the mediation of cell-apatite interactions, as adherence of MC3T3-E1 cells to apatite surfaces without protein coatings resulted in significant levels of cell death within 24 h in serum-free media. In the absence of protein-apatite interaction, cell viability could be "rescued" upon treatment of MC3T3-E1 cells with inhibitors to phosphate (PO(4) (3-)) transport, suggesting that PO(4) (3-) uptake may play a role in viability. In contrast, rescue was not observed upon treatment with calcium (Ca(2+)) channel inhibitors. Interestingly, a rapid "pull-down" of extracellular Ca(2+) and PO(4) (3-) ions onto the apatite surface could be measured upon the incubation of apatites with α-MEM, suggesting that cells may be subject to changing levels of Ca(2+) and PO(4) (3-) within their microenvironment. Therefore, the biomimetic apatite surface may significantly alter the microenvironment of adherent osteoblasts and, as such, be capable of affecting both cell survival and differentiation

Direct observation of acoustic phonon mediated relaxation between coupled exciton states in a single quantum dot molecule

We probe acoustic phonon mediated relaxation between tunnel coupled exciton states in an individual quantum dot molecule in which the inter-dot quantum coupling and energy separation between exciton states is continuously tuned using static electric field. Time resolved and temperature dependent optical spectroscopy are used to probe inter-level relaxation around the point of maximum coupling. The radiative lifetimes of the coupled excitonic states can be tuned from ~2 ns to ~10 ns as the spatially direct and indirect character of the wavefunction is varied by detuning from resonance. Acoustic phonon mediated inter-level relaxation is shown to proceed over timescales comparable to the direct exciton radiative lifetime, indicative of a relaxation bottleneck for level spacings in the range $\Delta E\$ ~3-6 meV.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted for publicatio

Carotenoids are the likely precursor of a significant fraction of marine dissolved organic matter.

The ocean's biota sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in part by producing dissolved organic matter (DOM) that persists in the ocean for millennia. This long-term accumulation of carbon may be facilitated by abiotic and biotic production of chemical structures that resist degradation, consequently contributing disproportionately to refractory DOM. Compounds that are selectively preserved in seawater were identified in solid-phase extracted DOM (PPL-DOM) using comprehensive gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS). These molecules contained cyclic head groups that were linked to isoprenoid tails, and their overall structures closely resembled carotenoid degradation products (CDP). The origin of these compounds in PPL-DOM was further confirmed with an in vitro β-carotene photooxidation experiment that generated water-soluble CDP with similar structural characteristics. The molecular-level identification linked at least 10% of PPL-DOM carbon, and thus 4% of total DOM carbon, to CDP. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of experimental CDP and environmental PPL-DOM overlapped considerably, which indicated that even a greater proportion of PPL-DOM was likely composed of CDP. The CDP-rich DOM fraction was depleted in radiocarbon (14C age > 1500 years), a finding that supports the possible long-term accumulation of CDP in seawater. By linking a specific class of widespread biochemicals to refractory DOM, this work provides a foundation for future studies that aim to examine how persistent DOM forms in the ocean