4,397 research outputs found
Beyond the Bubble, Beyond Fukushima: Reconsidering the History of Postwar Japan / バブルのかなた、福島のかなたとは 戦後日本史再考
Japan’s spectacular economic growth after 1945 made it a model for its neighbors and even, at the height of its economic dominance and hubris in the 1980s, an exemplar of modern capitalism for business leaders in the Americas, Europe, and Pacific Asia. By the early 1990s, however, the collapse of mammoth real estate and stock market bubbles launched the nation on two decades of stagnation or fitful growth, deflation, and soul searching. The hubris that drove the post-war era – that “we had all the answers” – had collapsed. And then, on 11 March 2011, the state’s ineffectual response to the triple-crises of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan heightened popular debate over whether the nation was doomed to a slow decline or might yet be able to recover its vigor and discover a new path and new purposes
Hospitalization, Arrest, or Discharge: Important Legal and Clinical Issues in the Emergency Evaluation of Persons Believed Dangerous to Others
SOUTHERNMOST OCCURRENCE OF THE SUWANNEE COOTER, PSEUDEMYS CONCINNA SUWANNIENSIS (TESTUDINES: EMYDIDAE)
The Suwannee Cooter, Pseudemys concinna suwanniensis, the largest member of the speciose turtle family Emydidae, inhabits a small number of rivers that drain into the northeastern Gulf of Mexico along the northwest coast of Florida from just west of Tallahassee to just south of Tampa. The status of this state-protected subspecies in the southernmost of these rivers, the Alafia, is unknown and hence of conservation concern. We provide recent evidence confirming that a reproducing population still exists in this river, and review available specimens and both published and unpublished records documenting the southern limit of distribution. At least within the eastern United States, our observations also extend confirmed knowledge of the geographic occurrence of hatchling turtles overwintering in the nest southward by 285 km
Potential Role of Sugars in the Hyphosphere of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi to Enhance Organic Phosphorus Mobilization
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi engage in symbiosis with more than 80% of terrestrial plants, enlarging root phosphorus (P) absorption volume by producing extensive extraradical hyphae (ERH) in the soil. In addition, AM fungi recruit and cooperate with soil bacteria to enhance soil organic P mobilization and improve fungal and plant fitness through hyphal exudates. However, the role of the dominant compounds in the hyphal exudates in enhancing organic P mobilization in the mycorrhizal pathway is still not well understood. In this study, we added sugars, i.e., glucose, fructose, and trehalose, which are detected in the hyphal exudates, to the hyphal compartments (HCs) that allowed the ERH of the AM fungus to grow or not. The results showed that in AM fungus-inoculated pots, adding three sugars at a concentration of 2 mmol C kg-1 soil significantly increased the phosphatase activity and facilitated the mobilization of organic P in the HCs. The addition of fructose at a concentration of 2 mmol C kg-1 soil was the most efficient in increasing the phosphatase activity and enhancing organic P mobilization. The released inorganic P was then absorbed by the ERH of the AM fungus. The enhanced mobilization of organic P was correlated with the increase in phoD gene number and the changing bacterial community in the presence of fungal hyphae. The sugar addition enriched the relative abundance of some bacterial taxa, e.g., Betaproteobacteriales. Our study suggested that the addition of the sugars by mycorrhizae could be a pivotal strategy in managing P uptake in agricultural production, potentially directing future practices to optimize plant-fungi-bacteria interactions for improved P use efficiency.</p
An X-Ray Spectroscopic Study of the SMC X-1/Sk 160 System
We have investigated the composition and distribution of the wind of Sk 160,
the supergiant companion of the X-ray star SMC X-1, by comparing an X-ray
spectrum of the source, obtained with the ASCA observatory, during an eclipse
with the computed spectra of reprocessed radiation from circumstellar matter
with various density distributions. We show that the metal abundance in the
wind of Sk 160 is no greater than a few tenths of solar, as has been determined
for other objects in the Magellanic Clouds. We also show that the observed
X-ray spectrum is not consistent with the density distributions of
circumstellar matter of the spherically symmetric form derived for line-driven
winds, nor with the density distribution derived from a hydrodynamic simulation
of the X-ray perturbed and line-driven wind by Blondin & Woo (1995).Comment: 35 pages including 16 figures, uses AASTeX v5.0.2, accepted to Ap
Evidence of Multiple r-Process Sites in the Early Galaxy: New Observations of CS 22892-052
First results are reported of a new abundance study of neutron-capture
elements in the ultra-metal-poor (UMP; [Fe/H] = -3.1) halo field giant star CS
22892-052. Using new high resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra, abundances
of more than 30 neutron-capture elements (Z>30) have been determined. Six
elements in the 40<Z<56 domain (Nb, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag and Cd) have been detected
for the first time in a UMP star. Abundances are also derived for three of the
heaviest stable elements (Os, Ir, and Pb). A second transition of thorium,
Th{4086}, confirms the abundance deduced from the standard Th{4019} line, and
an upper limit to the abundance of uranium is established from the absence of
the U{3859} line. As found in previous studies, the abundances of the heavier
(Z>=56) stable neutron-capture elements in CS 22892-052 match well the scaled
solar system r-process abundance distribution. From the observed Th abundance,
an average age of ~= 16 +/- 4 Gyr is derived for cs22892-052, consistent with
the lower age limit of ~= 11 Gyr derived from the upper limit on the U
abundance. The concordance of scaled solar r-process and CS 22892-052
abundances breaks down for the lighter neutron-capture elements, supporting
previous suggestions that different r-process production sites are responsible
for lighter and heavier neutron-capture elements.Comment: To be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letter
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