Oxygen and carbon isotope measurements of North Atlantic from IODP Hole 307-U1317E

Recent deep-ocean exploration has revealed unexpectedly widespread and diverse coral ecosystems in deep water on continental shelves, slopes, seamounts, and ridge systems around the world. Origin and growth history of these cold-water coral mounds are poorly known, owing to a lack of complete stratigraphic sections through them. Here we show high-resolution oxygen isotope records of planktic foraminifers from the base to the top of Challenger Mound, southwest of Ireland, which was drilled during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 307. Challenger Mound began to grow during isotope stage 92 (2.24 million years ago (Ma)), immediately after the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation and the initiation of modern stratification in the northeast Atlantic. Mound initiation was likely due to reintroduction of Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) and ensuing development of a density gradient with overlying northeastern Atlantic water (NEAW), where organic matter was prone to be stagnated and fueled the coral ecosystem. Coral growth continued for 11 glacial-interglacial cycles until isotopic stage 72 (1.82 Ma) with glacial siliciclastic input from the continental margin. After a long hiatus that separates the lower mound and the upper mound, coral growth restored for a short time in isotope stages 19-18 (0.8-0.7 Ma) in which sediments were either eroded or not deposited during a full glacial stage. The development pattern of the water mass interface between MOW and NEAW might have changed, because of the fluctuations of the MOW production which is responsible for the amplitude in ice volume oscillations from the low-amplitude 41 ka cycles for the lower mound to the high-amplitude 100 ka cycles for the upper mound. The average sedimentation and CaCO3 production rates of the lower mound were evaluated 27 cm/ka and 31.1 g/cm2/ka, respectively.

A Distributive Comparison of Enterprise Size in Korea and Taiwan

Research to date on the economic development of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan has frequently contrasted the two economies by depicting the former as centered on large-scale enterprises and the latter on small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this study is to see if the appropriateness of this perception will also be verified by the statistical data. In Section I the authors utilized census data on the Korean and Taiwanese manufacturing sectors to compare the distribution pattern of the sizes of enterprises in the two economies. However, on examining the available data for making this comparison, the authors discovered that for Korea the statistics provided are those at the level of the establishment (a physical unit engaging in industrial activities such as a factory, workshop, office, or mine) while the statistics for Taiwan are those at the enterprise level. Mindful of this difference, the authors looked at the portion of the economy accounted for by large-scale establishments in Korea that employed 500 workers or more and by enterprises in Taiwan employing the same number of workers, and they discovered that the portion that these large-scale businesses account for, especially in the area of output, has steadily declined since the 1980s. When comparing the share of total production that these large-scale establishments/enterprises account for in the two economies, the authors concluded that those in Korea accounted for a larger share of that economy's production than did their counterparts in Taiwan. The authors then compared the portion of the economy accounted for by establishments in Korea and enterprises in Taiwan that employed less than ten workers, and they found that the portion of the two economies that these very small-scale production units accounted for has also been on the decline. Section II compares the portions of the two economies accounted for by large business groups. After comparing the percentage of GDP accounted for by the total sales of these business groups, the authors found that large business groups in Korea have played a far more important role in Korean economy than has been the case for such groups in Taiwan. This difference in the importance of such business groups in the two economies has also played an significant part in fostering the perceived dichotomy of large-scale enterprises playing the important role in Korea versus SMEs being the important players in Taiwan. Section III compares the percentage of total exports accounted for by SMEs, and shows that SMEs in Taiwan account for a larger share of exports than do their counterparts in Korea. This section also shows that in Taiwan the share of export sales for SMEs has consistently exceeded that for non-SMEs, while in Korea the relationship between enterprise size and the rate of export sales has been directly proportional. This difference in the size of the major export players is another factor fostering the perception of the Korean economy being centered on big business while Taiwan's is on SMEs. Although there were difficulties and limitations when comparing the data of the two economies, the statistical comparison undertaken in this study shows that in general big business has played the major role in the development of the Korean economy while in Taiwan's economic development this role has been played by SMEs. Thus the statistical data also verifies the perceived dichotomy of these two economies.

Farming strategy of African smallholder farmers in transition from traditional to alternative agriculture : the case of the Nupe in central Nigeria

It is worthwhile to understand farming strategies of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, especially those of farmers who are in transition from traditional to alternative agriculture in terms of adoption of innovative technologies. In a case study of inland valleys in central Nigeria, we investigated the farming strategy of Nupe farmers who have a long-term tradition of wet rice cultivation and indigenous methods of land preparation for soil, water and weed management. In this region, a new method of land preparation has recently been introduced along with a recommendation to use improved seeds and chemical fertilizers. Our findings reveal that Nupe farmers directly sow traditional seeds and apply a marginal amount of fertilizer to paddy plots prepared by labor-saving methods on drought-prone hydromorphic valley fringes and flood-susceptible valley bottoms, whereas they preferentially transplanted improved seedlings and applied a relatively large quantity of fertilizer to paddy fields prepared by a labor-intensive and mechanized method on a valley position where they can access to optimum water condition (less risky against the drought and flood).

Object Kinetic Monte Carlo calculations of irradiated Fe-Cr dilute alloys: The effect of the interaction radius between substitutional Cr and self-interstitial Fe

ObjectKineticMonteCarlo models allow for the study of the evolution of the damage created by irradiation to time scales that are comparable to those achieved experimentally. Therefore, the essential ObjectKineticMonteCarlo parameters can be validated through comparison with experiments. However, this validation is not trivial since a large number of parameters is necessary, including migration energies of point defects and their clusters, binding energies of point defects in clusters, as well as the interactionradii. This is particularly cumbersome when describing an alloy, such as the Fe–Cr system, which is of interest for fusion energy applications. In this work we describe an ObjectKineticMonteCarlo model for Fe–Cr alloys in the dilute limit. The parameters used in the model come either from density functional theory calculations or from empirical interatomic potentials. This model is used to reproduce isochronal resistivity recovery experiments of electron irradiateddiluteFe–Cr alloys performed by Abe and Kuramoto. The comparison between the calculated results and the experiments reveal that an important parameter is the capture radius between substitutionalCr and self-interstitialFe atoms. A parametric study is presented on the effect of the capture radius on the simulated recovery curves.

T-REX: Bare electro-dynamic tape-tether technology experimetn on sounding rocket S520

The project to verify the performance of space tether technology was successfully demonstrated by the launch of the sounding rocket S520 the 25tu. The project is the space demonstration of science and engineering technologies of a bare tape electrodynamic tether (EDT) in the international campaign between Japan, USA, Europe and Australia. Method of "Inverse ORIGAMI (Tape tether folding)" was employed in order to deploy the bare tape EDT in a short period time of the suborbital flight. The deployment of tape tether was tested in a various experimental schemes on ground to show high reliability of tape tether deployment. The rocket was launched on the summer of 2010 and deployed a bare electro-dynamic tape tether with length 132.6 m, which is the world record of the length deployment of tape tether. The verification of tether technology has found a variety kind of science and technology results as the first in the humankind and will lead a large number of applications of space tether technologies