Studies on four new species of the malacocarpic Sargassum (Sargassaceae, Heterokontophyta) in China

In this paper, four new species of malacocarpic Sargassum are described: S. fuliginosoides Tseng et Lu sp. nov. is characterized by its discoid holdfast, the presence of the bulbs on the basal parts of the primary branches and very thick, lanceolate leaves. S. gemmiphorum Tseng et Lu sp. nov. is characterized by its conical holdfast, usually branched axis and very long, narrow, thin, denticulate leaves. S. shandongense Tseng, Zhang et Lu sp. nov. is characterized by its discoid holdfast, flattened primary branches, its leaves mostly entire or wavy at the margins and its racemose to paniculate receptacles. S. qingdaoense Tseng et Lu sp. nov. is characterized by the presence of the glandular dots on the ultimate branches and elongated lanceolate, acute, mostly wavy leaves.

Deep-sea pontoniines (Decapoda : Palaemonidae) from the philippine "PANGLAO 2005" expedition, with descriptions of four new species

Ten species belonging to three genera of the subfamily Pontoniinae were colleted by the deep-sea expedition "PANGLAO 2005" in the Philippines, including four new species of the genus Periclimenes, i.e., P. boucheti n. sp., P. leptunguis n. sp., P. ngi n. sp., and P. panglaonis sp. nov., and one newly recorded species from the Philippines, Periclimenes laccadivensis. They are reported with color photographs except one species, Plesiopontonia monodi. The possible synonymy of Periclimenes foresti and P. granuloides is discussed.

Heat-shock protein70 gene expression in four hatchery Pacific Abalone Haliotis discus hannai Ino populations using for marker-assisted selection

Heat shock proteins (Hsps) are molecular chaperones that help organisms cope with stressful conditions. Here, we report on the growth rates and Hsp70 expressions in inbred and hybrid populations of abalone Haliotis discus hannai Ino. In abalone, inbred populations expressed more Hsp70 than hybrid populations at all temperatures, except at very high temperatures close to the physiological limit. At benign temperatures, there was a clear trend towards higher Hsp70 expression in inbred than hybrid populations, whereas at higher temperatures, a trend in the opposite direction was observed. The temperature of maximal Hsp70 expression (T-peak) varied with the population type. The T-peak of inbred populations (26 degrees C) was lower than that of the hybrid populations (28 degrees C). The maximal inducible Hsp70 of inbred populations was higher than that of hybrid populations. The results showed a trend towards higher expression in inbred population at a lower temperature. These results provide direct experimental evidence that hybrids can cope with the intrinsic stress even at non-stressful temperatures. The constitutive Hsp70 may therefore be used for marker-assisted selection in a breeding programme.

Spatial and temporal relationships between precipitation and ANPP of four types of grasslands in northern China

Precipitation is considered to be the primary resource limiting terrestrial biological activity in water-limited regions. Its overriding effect on the production of grassland is complex. In this paper, field data of 48 sites (including temperate meadow steppe,temperate steppe, temperate desert steppe and alpine meadow) were gathered from 31 published papers and monographs to analyze the relationship between above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) and precipitation by the method of regression analysis. The results indicated that there was a great difference between spatial pattern and temporal pattern by which precipitation influenced grassland ANPP. Mean annual precipitation (MAP) was the main factor determining spatial distribution of grassland ANPP (r~2 = 0.61,P ＜ 0.01); while temporally, no significant relationship was found between the variance of AN PP and inter-annual precipitation for the four types of grassland. However, after dividing annual precipitation into monthly value and taking time lag effect into account, the study found significant relationships between ANPP and precipitation. For the temperate meadow steppe, the key variable determining inter-annual change of ANPP was last August-May precipitation (r~2= 0.47, P = 0.01); for the temperate steppe, the key variable was July precipitation (r~2 = 0.36, P = 0.02); for the temperate desert steppe, the key variable was April-June precipitation (r~2 = 0.51, P ＜0.01); for the alpine meadow, the key variable was last September-May precipitation (r~2 = 0.29, P ＜ 0.05). In comparison with analogous research, the study demonstrated that the key factor determining inter-annual changes of grassland ANPP was the cumulative precipitation in certain periods of that year or the previous year.

Comparative Study of Contents of Four Tropane Alkaloids in Cultural and Wild Anisodus tanguticus

To assess the medicinal value of cultural Anisodus tanguticus,the contents of four bioactive tropane alkaloids,anisodine,anisodamine,scopolamine and atropine,in cultural and wild materials were determined by the HPLC method.The results showed that content of each alkaloid in the aboveground parts of cultural and wild samples was lower than that in roots,and this explained why it was not the whole plant but the root that was used as medicinal materials.The content of each alkaloid in the roots of one-year cultural material was lower than that in the two-year plants.The discrepancy of the total of four alkaloids between one-year and wild plants is not significant.Moreover,the total of four alkaloids,and the contents of anisodine,scopolamine,and atropine in two-year plants were higher than those in wild plant.Thus there is medicinal value in the cultivated A.tanguticus as well as wild A.tanguticus,especially in the two-year cultural A.tanguticus.

Effects of vegetation control on ecosystem water use efficiency within and among four grassland ecosystems in China

Through 2-3-year (2003-2005) continuous eddy covariance measurements of carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes, we examined the seasonal, inter-annual, and inter-ecosystem variations in the ecosystem-level water use efficiency (WUE, defined as the ratio of gross primary production, GPP, to evapotranspiration, ET) at four Chinese grassland ecosystems in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and North China. Representing the most prevalent grassland types in China, the four ecosystems are an alpine swamp meadow ecosystem, an alpine shrub-meadow ecosystem, an alpine meadow-steppe ecosystem, and a temperate steppe ecosystem, which illustrate a water availability gradient and thus provide us an opportunity to quantify environmental and biological controls on ecosystem WUE at different spatiotemporal scales. Seasonally, WUE tracked closely with GPP at the four ecosystems, being low at the beginning and the end of the growing seasons and high during the active periods of plant growth. Such consistent correspondence between WUE and GPP suggested that photosynthetic processes were the dominant regulator of the seasonal variations in WUE. Further investigation indicated that the regulations were mainly due to the effect of leaf area index (LAI) on carbon assimilation and on the ratio of transpiration to ET (T/ET). Besides, except for the swamp meadow, LAI also controlled the year-to-year and site-to-site variations in WUE in the same way, resulting in the years or sites with high productivity being accompanied by high WUE. The general good correlation between LAI and ecosystem WUE indicates that it may be possible to predict grassland ecosystem WUE simply with LAI. Our results also imply that climate change-induced shifts in vegetation structure, and consequently LAI may have a significant impact on the relationship between ecosystem carbon and water cycles in grasslands.

Parallelism in Manipulator Dynamics

This paper addresses the problem of efficiently computing the motor torques required to drive a lower-pair kinematic chain (e.g., a typical manipulator arm in free motion, or a mechanical leg in the swing phase) given the desired trajectory; i.e., the Inverse Dynamics problem. It investigates the high degree of parallelism inherent in the computations, and presents two "mathematically exact" formulations especially suited to high-speed, highly parallel implementations using special-purpose hardware or VLSI devices. In principle, the formulations should permit the calculations to run at a speed bounded only by I/O. The first presented is a parallel version of the recent linear Newton-Euler recursive algorithm. The time cost is also linear in the number of joints, but the real-time coefficients are reduced by almost two orders of magnitude. The second formulation reports a new parallel algorithm which shows that it is possible to improve upon the linear time dependency. The real time required to perform the calculations increases only as the [log2] of the number of joints. Either formulation is susceptible to a systolic pipelined architecture in which complete sets of joint torques emerge at successive intervals of four floating-point operations. Hardware requirements necessary to support the algorithm are considered and found not to be excessive, and a VLSI implementation architecture is suggested. We indicate possible applications to incorporating dynamical considerations into trajectory planning, e.g. it may be possible to build an on-line trajectory optimizer.

Evolution feature oriented model driven product line engineering approach for synergistic and dynamic service evolution in Clouds: four kinds of schema.

The proposed research will focus on developing a novel approach to solve Software Service Evolution problems in Computing Clouds. The approach will support dynamic evolution of the software service in clouds via a set of discovered evolution patterns. An initial survey informed us that such an approach does not exist yet and is in urgent need. Evolution Requirement can be classified into evolution features; researchers can describe the whole requirement by using evolution feature typology, the typology will define the relation and dependency between each features. After the evolution feature typology has been constructed, evolution model will be created to make the evolution more specific. Aspect oriented approach can be used for enhance evolution feature-model modularity. Aspect template code generation technique will be used for model transformation in the end. Product Line Engineering contains all the essential components for driving the whole evolution process.

JUSTEIS (JISC Usage Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services) Strand A: survey of end users of all electronic information services (HE and FE), with Action research report. Final report 2002/2003 Cycle Four.

Urquhart, C. (editor for JUSTEIS team), Spink, S., Thomas, R., Yeoman, A., Durbin, J., Turner, J., Armstrong, A., Lonsdale, R. & Fenton, R. (2003). JUSTEIS (JISC Usage Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services) Strand A: survey of end users of all electronic information services (HE and FE), with Action research report. Final report 2002/2003 Cycle Four. Aberystwyth: Department of Information Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth with Information Automation Ltd (CIQM). Sponsorship: JISC

Judicial Perspectives on the Operation of s.41 and the Relevance and Admissibility of Prior Sexual History Evidence: Four Scenarios

Judicial Perspectives on the Operation of s.41 and the Relevance and Admissibility of Prior Sexual History Evidence: Four scenarios. N.Kibble. Crim.L.R. 2005 190. RAE2008

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi and Medieval Welsh Poetry

Hughes, I. (2006). The Four Branches of the Mabinogi and Medieval Welsh Poetry. Studi Celtici. 4, pp.155-193. RAE2008