Effect of the coastal conservation due to beach nourishment of Totori sand dune coast

Tottori Sand Dune Coast located at western part of Japan is a sandy beach with a length about 8km facing Sea of Japan. The coast has been eroded starting around 1940s and the beach nourishment project has been carried out to restore the shoreline since 2005 at Tottori Sand Dune Coast. In the project, the deposition sands at port and river mouth were transported to the erosional area and injected in the region of the offshore erosional area and the backshore area and the total volumes of the sand are about 400,000m3 from 2005 to2011. However the effects of the project are not clarified and the detailed examination is not performed. The purpose of this study is to investigate the movement of the injected sand and the effect of the beach nourishment. In this study, using the bottom sounding data from 2002 to 2011, the sand volumes were estimated and the shoreline changes were investigated. Also, at the Tottori Port adjacent to the Coast, the amount of the sediment is estimated as well as Tottori Sand Dune Coast. From these analyses, the beach nourishment are effective and the large amount of the sediment placed at land area restored the shoreline quickly

Cloud optical thickness and effective particle radius derived from transmitted solar radiation measurements : Comparison with cloud radar observations

A method is presented for determining the optical thickness and effective particle radius of stratiform clouds containing liquid water drops in the absence of drizzle from transmitted solar radiation measurements. The procedure compares measurements of the cloud transmittance from the ground at water-absorbing and nonabsorbing wavelengths with lookup tables of the transmittance precomputed for plane-parallel, vertically homogeneous clouds. The optical thickness derived from the cloud transmittance may be used to retrieve vertical profiles of cloud microphysics in combination with the radar reflectivity factor. To do this, we also present an algorithm for solving the radar equation with a constraint of the optical thickness at the visible wavelength. Observations of clouds were made in August and September 2003 at Koganei, Tokyo, Japan, using a PREDE i-skyradiometer and a 95-GHz cloud radar Super Polarimetric Ice Crystal Detection and Explication Radar (SPIDER). The optical thickness and effective radius of water clouds were derived from the i-skyradiometer. Then, the vertical profile of the effective radius was retrieved from SPIDER, using the optical thickness determined from the i-skyradiometer. We found that the effective radii derived by using these two instruments were in good agreement

Use of Chitosan-Siloxane Porous Hybrid Scaffold as Novel Burr Hole Covers

Chitosan-siloxane porous hybrids have high potential as tissue scaffolds. This manuscript focuses on the regeneration of skull bone after a burr hole. This was done using hybrids incorporated with calcium or coated with hydroxyapatite after soaking in a phosohate solution. The specimens fitted the burr hole and the cells migrated into the pores form surrounding bone tissue. After implanation no inflammation was observed and the specimens degraded 12 months later. A coating of hydroxyapatite accelerated bone formation compared

Development of 3D beach evolution model for sand nourishments and its application to morphodynamics around coastal structures

A numerical model to predict three-dimensional (3D) beach evolution after sand nourishment was developed. The injection process of sand to near shoreline or offshore area was expressed by the sediment flux in the conservation equation associated with sediment transports and water depth changes, furthermore, sand dredging process\ud was considered. In this study, First, computation of beach evolution around a coastal structure with and without nourishment was carried out. Secondly, the developed model was applied to the sand recycling project conducted at a field site, Kaike Coast, Tottori, Japan. Computed result was compared with the field data at Kaike Coast. Finally, the applicability of the developed model was investigated

Mechanisms of organelle division and inheritance and their implications regarding the origin of eukaryotic cells

Mitochondria and plastids have their own DNAs and are regarded as descendants of endosymbiotic prokaryotes. Organellar DNAs are not naked in vivo but are associated with basic proteins to form DNA-protein complexes (called organelle nuclei). The concept of organelle nuclei provides a new approach to explain the origin, division, and inheritance of organelles. Organelles divide using organelle division rings (machineries) after organelle-nuclear division. Organelle division machineries are a chimera of the FtsZ (filamentous temperature sensitive Z) ring of bacterial origin and the eukaryotic mechanochemical dynamin ring. Thus, organelle division machineries contain a key to solve the origin of organelles (eukaryotes). The maternal inheritance of organelles developed during sexual reproduction and it is also probably intimately related to the origin of organelles. The aims of this review are to describe the strategies used to reveal the dynamics of organelle division machineries, and the significance of the division machineries and maternal inheritance in the origin and evolution of eukaryotes

Neurogenic muscular atrophy and low density of large myelinated fibres of sural nerve in chorea-acanthocytosis

In three cases of chorea-acanthocytosis (acanthocytosis and neurological disease, or familial degeneration of the basal ganglia with acanthocytosis), biopsies of short peroneal muscles and sural nerves were studied histologically. The muscles showed groups of atrophic fibres with clumping of sarcolemmal nuclei in all cases. It was concluded that neurogenic muscular atrophy should be included as one of the main pathological findings in chorea-acanthocytosis. The sural nerves showed a small number of large myelinated fibres in two cases. This finding remains to be confirmed in other cases

Manipulating transgenes using a chromosome vector

Recent technological advances have enabled us to visualize the organization and dynamics of local chromatin structures; however, the comprehensive mechanisms by which chromatin organization modulates gene regulation are poorly understood. We designed a human artificial chromosome vector that allowed manipulation of transgenes using a method for delivering chromatin architectures into different cell lines from human to fish. This methodology enabled analysis of de novo construction, epigenetic maintenance and changes in the chromatin architecture of specific genes. Expressive and repressive architectures of human STAT3 were established from naked DNA in mouse embryonic stem cells and CHO cells, respectively. Delivery of STAT3 within repressive architecture to embryonic stem cells resulted in STAT3 activation, accompanied by changes in DNA methylation. This technology for manipulating a single gene with a specific chromatin architecture could be utilized in applied biology, including stem cell science and regeneration medicine

High-throughput powder diffraction measurement system consisting of multiple MYTHEN detectors at beamline BL02B2 of SPring-8

In this study, we developed a user-friendly automatic powder diffraction measurement system for Debye–Scherrer geometry using a capillary sample at beamline BL02B2 of SPring-8. The measurement system consists of six one-dimensional solid-state (MYTHEN) detectors, a compact auto-sampler, wide-range temperature control systems, and a gas handling system. This system enables to do the automatic measurement of temperature dependence of the diffraction patterns for multiple samples. We introduced two measurement modes in the MYTHEN system and developed new attachments for the sample environment such as a gas handling system. The measurement modes and the attachments can offer in situ and/or time-resolved measurements in an extended temperature range between 25 K and 1473 K and various gas atmospheres and pressures. The results of the commissioning and performance measurements using reference materials (NIST CeO2 674b and Si 640c), V2O3 and Ti2O3, and a nanoporous coordination polymer are presented