Geomorphic and hydrodynamic responses in salt marsh-tidal creek systems, Jiangsu, China

Salt marsh-tidal creek systems as a coastal geomorphological unit represent an important natural resource. The present study on Jiangsu salt marshes, eastern China, shows that variations in tidal current velocities in salt marsh creeks are controlled by the local tidal wave characteristics and the bed slope and elevation of the salt marshes and creeks. Likewise, the tidal currents modify the geomorphology of the salt marsh-tidal creek systems by transporting sediments and causing erosion/deposition. Storm events, which appear to have cyclical changes in their intensity relating to sunspot activities, can affect the geomorphic evolution of such systems. Further, in response to accelerated sea-level rise, accretional rates on salt marshes may increase. The tidal creeks have the function of transporting water and sediment onto the salt marsh surface; further, the energy of tidal currents and waves are dissipated within the salt marsh-tidal creek system. Hence, this coastal system has a potential value for coastal protection.

Interbasin freshwater, heat and salt transport through the boundaries of the East and South China Seas from a variable-grid global ocean circulation model

The monthly and annual mean freshwater, heat and salt transport through the open boundaries of the South and East China Seas derived from a variable-grid global ocean circulation model is reported. The model has 1/6degrees resolution for the seas adjacent to China and 30 resolution for the global ocean. The model results are in fairly good agreement with the existing estimates based on measurements. The computation shows that the flows passing through the South China Sea contribute volume, heat and salt transport of 5.3 Sv, 0.57 PW and 184 Ggs(-1), respectively (about 1/4) to the Indonesian Throughflow, indicating that the South China Sea is an important pathway of the Pacific to Indian Ocean throughflow. The volume, heat and salt transport of the Kuroshio in the East China Sea is 25.6 Sv, 2.32 PW and 894 Ggs(-1), respectively. Less than 1/4 of this transport passes through the passage between Iriomote and Okinawa. The calculation of heat balance indicates that the South China Sea absorbs net heat flux from the sun and atmosphere with a rate of 0.08 PW, while the atmosphere gains net heat flux from the Baohai, Yellow and East China Seas with a rate of 0.05 PW.

Sources and preservation of organic matter in Plum Island salt marsh sediments (MA, USA): long-chain n-alkanes and stable carbon isotope compositions

Elemental (TOC, TN, C/N) and stable carbon isotopic (delta(13)C) compositions and n-alkane (nC(16-38)) concentrations were measured for Spartina alterniflora, a C-4 marsh grass, Typha latifolia, a C-3 marsh grass, and three sediment cores collected from middle and upper estuarine sites from the Plum Island salt marshes. Our results indicated that the organic matter preserved in the sediments was highly affected by the marsh plants that dominated the sampling sites. delta(13)C values of organic matter preserved in the upper fresh water site sediment were more negative (-23.0+/-0.3) as affected by the C-3 plants than the values of organic matter preserved in the sediments of middle (-18.9+/-0.8) and mud flat sites (-19.4+/-0.1) as influenced mainly by the C4 marsh plants. The distribution of n-alkanes measured in all sediments showed similar patterns as those determined in the marsh grasses S. alterniflora and T. latifolia, and nC(21) to nC(33) long-chain n-alkanes were the major compounds determined in all sediment samples. The strong odd-to-even carbon numbered n-alkane predominance was found in all three sediments and nC(29) was the most abundant homologue in all samples measured. Both delta(13)C compositions of organic matter and n-alkane distributions in these sediments indicate that the marsh plants could contribute significant amount of organic matter preserved in Plum Island salt marsh sediments. This suggests that salt marshes play an important role in the cycling of nutrients and organic carbon in the estuary and adjacent coastal waters. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Salt-assisted acid hydrolysis of chitosan to oligomers under microwave irradiation

The effect of inorganic salts such as sodium chloride on the hydrolysis of chitosan in a microwave field was investigated. While it is known that microwave heating is a convenient way to obtain a wide range of products of different molecular weights only by changing the reaction time and/or the radiation power, the addition of some inorganic salts was shown to effectively accelerate the degradation of chitosan under microwave irradiation. The molecular weight of the degraded chitosan obtained by microwave irradiation was considerably lower than that obtained by traditional heating. Moreover, the molecular weight of degraded chitosan obtained by microwave irradiation assisted under the conditions of added salt was considerably lower than that obtained by microwave irradiation without added salt. Furthermore, the effect of ionic strength of the added salts was not linked with the change of molecular weight. FTIR spectral analyses demonstrated that a significantly shorter time was required to obtain a satisfactory molecular weight by the microwave irradiation-assisted inorganic salt method than by microwave irradiation without inorganic salts and conventional technology. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Low-temperature molten salt synthesis and characterization of CoWO4 nano-particles

CoWO4 nano-particles were successfully synthesized at a low temperature of 270 degrees C by a molten salt method, and effects of such processing parameters as holding time and salt quantity on the crystallization and development Of CoWO4 crystallites were initially studied. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM). and photoluminescent spectra techniques (PL), respectively. Experimental results showed that the well-crystallized CoWO4 nano-particles with ca. 45 nm in diameter could be obtained at 270 degrees C for a holding time of 8 h with 6:1 mass ratio of the salt to CoWO4 precursor, and XRD analysis evidenced that the as-prepared sample was a pure monoclinic phase Of CoWO4 with wolframite structure. Their PL spectra revealed that the CoWO4 nano-particles displayed a very strong PL peak at 453 nm with the excitation wavelength of 230 nm, and PL properties of CoWO4 crystallites relied on their crystalline state, especially on their particle size. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Synthesis of NiWO4 nano-particles in low-temperature molten salt medium

Nickel tungstate (NiWO4) nano-particles were successfully synthesized at low temperatures by a molten salt method, and characterized by Xray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ultraviolet visible spectra techniques (UV-vis), respectively. The effects of calcining temperature and salt quantity on the crystallization and development of NiWO4 crystallites were studied. Experimental results showed that the well-crystallized NiWO4 nano-particles with about 30 nm in diameter could be prepared at 270 degrees C with 6:1 mass ratio of the salt to NiWO4 precursor. XRD analysis confirmed that the product was a pure monoclinic phase of NiWO4 with wolframite structure. UV-vis spectrum revealed that NiWO4 nano-particles had good light absorption properties in both ultraviolet and visible light region. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.

Mechanism for Giycinebetaine to Improve Plant Salt Resistance and Its Research Advances in Genetic Engineering

The paper systematically discusses the mechanism for glycinebetaine to improve plant salt resistance and its research advances in genetic engineering at home and abroad as well as summarizing the research progresses about the key enzymes and their genetic engineering in glycinebetaine biosynthesis. It suggests that on the basis of further understanding the mechanism for glycinebetaine to improve plant salt resistance,the transformation of the genes relating to glycinebetaine biosynthesis should be carried out in major crops so that new plant varieties resistant to salt can be obtained.

Isolation and characterization of a novel variant of HMW glutenin subunit gene from the St genome of Pseudoroegneria stipifolia

The x- and y-type high molecular weight (HMW) glutenin subunits are conserved seed storage proteins in wheat and related species. Here we describe investigations on the HMW glutenin subunits from several Pseudoroegneria accessions. The electrophoretic mobilities of the HMW glutenin subunits from Pd. stipifolia, Pd tauri and Pd strigosa were much faster than those of orthologous wheat subunits, indicating that their protein size may be smaller than that of wheat subunits. The coding sequence of the Glu-1St1 subunit (encoded by the Pseudoroegneria stipifolia accession PI325181) was isolated, and found to represent the native open reading frame (ORF) by in vitro expression. The deduced amino acid sequence of Glu-1St1 matched with that determined from the native subunit by mass spectrometric analysis. The domain organization in Glu-1St1 showed high similarity with that of typical HMW glutenin subunits. However, Glu-1St1 exhibited several distinct characteristics. First, the length of its repetitive domain was substantially smaller than that of conventional subunits, which explains its much faster electrophoretic mobility in SDS-PAGE. Second, although the N-terminal domain of Glu-1St1 resembled that of y-type subunit, its C-terminal domain was more similar to that of x-type subunit. Third, the N- and C-terminat domains of Glu-1St1 shared conserved features with those of barley D-hordein, but the repeat motifs and the organization of its repetitive domain were more similar to those of HMW glutenin subunits than to D-hordein. We conclude that Glu-1St1 is a novel variant of HMW glutenin subunits. The analysis of Glu-1St1 may provide new insight into the evolution of HMW glutenin subunits in Triticeae species. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fault-Tolerant Design for Multistage Routing Networks

As the size of digital systems increases, the mean time between single component failures diminishes. To avoid component related failures, large computers must be fault-tolerant. In this paper, we focus on methods for achieving a high degree of fault-tolerance in multistage routing networks. We describe a multipath scheme for providing end-to-end fault-tolerance on large networks. The scheme improves routing performance while keeping network latency low. We also describe the novel routing component, RN1, which implements this scheme, showing how it can be the basic building block for fault-tolerant multistage routing networks.

Salt-assisted acid hydrolysis of starch to D-glucose under microwave irradiation

The effect of inorganic salts on the hydrolysis of starch in a microwave field was investigated and it was found that some inorganic salts can effectively accelerate the acid hydrolysis of starch. The yield of D-glucose reached 111 wt% (equal to the theoretical yield). (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Hydrocarbon Potential of the Infra-salt Strata

This schematic geological cross-section of Angola offshore is representative of the majority of the Atlantic-type divergent margins. It illustrates the main geological features allowing to understand the different petroleum systems occurring, particularly, in South Atlantic divergent margins : (i) Pre-Pangea rocks (Precambrian granite-gneiss basement, volcanic rocks an/ or Paleozoic sediments, more or less, metamorphosed), which lie underneath the pre-rifting unconformity (PRU), in blue in the cross-section ; (ii) The rift-type basins developed during the lengthening of the Pangea supercontinent ; (iii) The breakup unconformity (BUU), which highlight the upper limit of the rift-type basins, in which organic rich lacustrine shales with a parallel internal configuration are potential source-rocks (organic matter type I) ; (iv) The SDRs (seaward dipping reflectors), which, generally, do not have any generating hydrocarbon potential (just 5 m of lacustrine shales are known in Austral basin) ; (v) The BUU is fossilized by SDRs (subaerial volcanism) or by margin infra-salt sediments (forming the mistakenly called by some American geoscientists "sag basin") ; (vi) The Loeme salt basin, which is a twin of the Brazilian salt basin, that is to say, that both basins have always been individualized ; (vii) The transgressive (backstepping) and regressive (forestepping) phases of the post-Pangea continental encroachment cycle ; (v) The interface between these sedimentary phases, correspond to the emplacement of potential marine source-rocks (organic matter type-II) ; (vi) Potential dispersive source rocks (organic matter type III) are possible in the regressive sedimentary interval.

AIDA-Based Real-Time Fault-Tolerant Broadcast Disks

The proliferation of mobile computers and wireless networks requires the design of future distributed real-time applications to recognize and deal with the significant asymmetry between downstream and upstream communication capacities, and the significant disparity between server and client storage capacities. Recent research work proposed the use of Broadcast Disks as a scalable mechanism to deal with this problem. In this paper, we propose a new broadcast disks protocol, based on our Adaptive Information Dispersal Algorithm (AIDA). Our protocol is different from previous broadcast disks protocols in that it improves communication timeliness, fault-tolerance, and security, while allowing for a finer control of multiplexing of prioritized data (broadcast frequencies). We start with a general introduction of broadcast disks. Next, we propose broadcast disk organizations that are suitable for real-time applications. Next, we present AIDA and show its fault-tolerance and security properties. We conclude the paper with the description and analysis of AIDA-based broadcast disks organizations that achieve both timeliness and fault-tolerance, while preserving downstream communication capacity.

TCP Boston: A Fragmentation-tolerant TCP Protocol for ATM Networks

The popularity of TCP/IP coupled with the premise of high speed communication using Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology have prompted the network research community to propose a number of techniques to adapt TCP/IP to ATM network environments. ATM offers Available Bit Rate (ABR) and Unspecified Bit Rate (UBR) services for best-effort traffic, such as conventional file transfer. However, recent studies have shown that TCP/IP, when implemented using ABR or UBR, leads to serious performance degradations, especially when the utilization of network resources (such as switch buffers) is high. Proposed techniques-switch-level enhancements, for example-that attempt to patch up TCP/IP over ATMs have had limited success in alleviating this problem. The major reason for TCP/IP's poor performance over ATMs has been consistently attributed to packet fragmentation, which is the result of ATM's 53-byte cell-oriented switching architecture. In this paper, we present a new transport protocol, TCP Boston, that turns ATM's 53-byte cell-oriented switching architecture into an advantage for TCP/IP. At the core of TCP Boston is the Adaptive Information Dispersal Algorithm (AIDA), an efficient encoding technique that allows for dynamic redundancy control. AIDA makes TCP/IP's performance less sensitive to cell losses, thus ensuring a graceful degradation of TCP/IP's performance when faced with congested resources. In this paper, we introduce AIDA and overview the main features of TCP Boston. We present detailed simulation results that show the superiority of our protocol when compared to other adaptations of TCP/IP over ATMs. In particular, we show that TCP Boston improves TCP/IP's performance over ATMs for both network-centric metrics (e.g., effective throughput) and application-centric metrics (e.g., response time).

Ergodicity and Mixing Rate of One-Dimensional Cellular Automata

One-and two-dimensional cellular automata which are known to be fault-tolerant are very complex. On the other hand, only very simple cellular automata have actually been proven to lack fault-tolerance, i.e., to be mixing. The latter either have large noise probability ε or belong to the small family of two-state nearest-neighbor monotonic rules which includes local majority voting. For a certain simple automaton L called the soldiers rule, this problem has intrigued researchers for the last two decades since L is clearly more robust than local voting: in the absence of noise, L eliminates any finite island of perturbation from an initial configuration of all 0's or all 1's. The same holds for a 4-state monotonic variant of L, K, called two-line voting. We will prove that the probabilistic cellular automata Kε and Lε asymptotically lose all information about their initial state when subject to small, strongly biased noise. The mixing property trivially implies that the systems are ergodic. The finite-time information-retaining quality of a mixing system can be represented by its relaxation time Relax(⋅), which measures the time before the onset of significant information loss. This is known to grow as (1/ε)^c for noisy local voting. The impressive error-correction ability of L has prompted some researchers to conjecture that Relax(Lε) = 2^(c/ε). We prove the tight bound 2^(c1log^21/ε) ＜ Relax(Lε) ＜ 2^(c2log^21/ε) for a biased error model. The same holds for Kε. Moreover, the lower bound is independent of the bias assumption. The strong bias assumption makes it possible to apply sparsity/renormalization techniques, the main tools of our investigation, used earlier in the opposite context of proving fault-tolerance.