Eco-biology of Mastacembelus pancalus (Ham.) and their distribution in different water bodies

The eco-biological of the spiny eel, Mastacembelus pailcalus in the river Padma, adjacent flood plains and ponds were influenced by various physico-chemical factors such as water temperature, water transparency, pH, dissolved oxygen, free carbon dioxide and alkalinity. Flood plain areas are the best habitat for the M. pancalus with maximum abundance.

Some socio-economic aspects of the fishermen of twin pronged floodplain wetlands in West Bengal

A socio-economic investigation was carried out in two fishermen cooperative societies namely Purba Helatala Fishermen Co-operative Society (E-1), Barhal Fishermen Co-operative Society (E-2), under Maldah district, West Bengal to which the beels (flood plains) under study belong. A total of 132 member fishermen, which constituted the sample, were personally interviewed. The age group of the fishermen of the sample in E-1 varied between 20 and 66 years whereas in E-2 it was 22 and 61 years. All the members of the sample belonged to Scheduled Caste (SC) community. The primary occupation of all the respondents of both the beels was observed to be fishing (100%). Maximum number of illiterate respondents was observed to 56% in E-2 and 35% in E-1. It has been observed that as many as 38.3% of fishermen were having fishing experience which ranging from 16 to 20 years in E-1 whereas it was 6 - 10 years (36.1%) in E-2. Maximum number of fishermen lived in thatched houses (41.66%) in E-1 whereas in E-2 most of them lived in houses made of corrugated tin/tile shed (41.66%). As many as 41.55% of E-1 and 30.55% of E-2 used dug-out canoes for their fishing. Maximum number of fishermen used cast net with individualistic approach (100%) followed by Gill net (E-1:41.56% and E-2:55.55%). Most of the fishermen of the sample participated in fishing activities for 241 to 270 days (41.66%) in E-2 whereas it was 211 to 240 days (33.33 %) in E-1 in a year. During fishing season as many as 40.0% of the respondents of E-1 earned on an average Rs. 801.00 to Rs. 900.00 per month whereas it was Rs. 901.00 to Rs.1,000.00 (43.05%) in case of E-2. A section of fishermen of the sample borrowed money often (51.6%) E-1 whereas it was most often (27.27%) of E-2. The respondents of E-2 made regular repayment of the loan to the maximum extent (79.48%) whereas it was 57.44% in E-1. Higher fish production vis-a-vis higher income for the fishermen was observed in the beel (E2) having close characteristic.

The stripe-backed weasel Mustela strigidorsa: taxonomy, ecology, distribution and status

1. The stripe-backed weasel Mustela strigidorsa is one of the rarest and least-known mustelids in the world. Its phylogenetic relationships with other Mustela species remain controversial, though several unique morphological features distinguish it from congeners. 2. It probably lives mainly in evergreen forests in hills and mountains, but has also been recorded from plains forest, dense scrub, secondary forest, grassland and farmland. Known sites range in altitude from 90 m to 2500 m. Data are insufficient to distinguish between habitat and altitudes which support populations, and those where only dispersing animals may occur. 3. It has been confirmed from many localities in north-east India, north and central Myanmar, south China, north Thailand, north and central Laos, and north and central Vietnam. Given the limited survey effort, the number of recent records shows that the species is not as rare as hitherto believed. Neither specific nor urgent conservation needs are apparent.

Report on the frame survey of Lake Albert conducted in May 2012

Lake Albert and Albert Nile are a major source of fisheries resources sustaining the riparian communities in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Like all shared bodies of Uganda Lake Albert and Albert Nile fisheries are faced with immense exploitation pressure one time described as the tragedy of the commons. In Uganda, the lake is shared by five riparian districts namely: Buliisa, bundibugyo, Hoima, Kibaale and Nebbi. The lake covers a total estimated surface area of 5,270 km2 with approximately 60% within Ugandan waters (Walker, 1972). It is located in the western part of the great rift-valley at an altitude of 618 m above Sea level. The central parts of the lake are characterized by steep escarpments whereas the northern and southern parts lie in a plain of the rift valley. The plains are gently sloping, resulting in shallow swampy inshore waters in many places. The major inflowing rivers are the Semliki and Kafu in the south, and the Victoria Nile at the northern tip. The lake has a diverse fish fauna with a gradient of multi-species fisheries in different parts of the lake.

Study on spatial pattern of land-use change in China during 1995-2000

It is more and more acknowledged that land-use/cover dynamic change has become a key subject urgently to be dealt with in the study of global environmental change. Supported by the Landsat TM digital images, spatial patterns and temporal variation of land-use change during 1995 -2000 are studied in the paper. According to the land-use dynamic degree model, supported by the 1km GRID data of land-use change and the comprehensive characters of physical, economic and social features, a dynamic regionalization of land-use change is designed to disclose the spatial pattern of land-use change processes. Generally speaking, in the traditional agricultural zones, e.g., Huang-Huai-Hai Plains, Yangtze River Delta and Sichuan Basin, the built-up and residential areas occupy a great proportion of arable land, and in the interlock area of farming and pasturing of northern China and the oases agricultural zones, the reclamation I of arable land is conspicuously driven by changes of production conditions, economic benefits and climatic conditions. The implementation of "returning arable land into woodland or grassland" policies has won initial success in some areas, but it is too early to say that the trend of deforestation has been effectively reversed across China. In this paper, the division of dynamic regionalization of land-use change is designed, for the sake of revealing the temporal and spatial features of land-use change and laying the foundation for the study of regional scale land-use changes. Moreover, an integrated study, including studies of spatial pattern and temporal process of land-use change, is carried out in this paper, which is an interesting try on the comparative studies of spatial pattern on change process and the change process of spatial pattern of land-use change.

Impacts of socio-economic factors on sediment yield in the Upper Yangtze River

In recent years, the role of human activities in changing sediment yield has become more apparent for the construction of hydraulic engineering and water conservation projections in the Upper Yangtze River, but it has not been evaluated at the macro scale. Taking Sichuan Province and Chongqing City as an example, this paper studies the relationship between socio-economic factors and sediment yield in the Upper Yangtze River based on section data in 1989 and 2007. The results show that sediment yield is significantly correlated with population density and cultivated area, in which the former appears to be more closely related to sediment yield. Moreover, in the relation of sediment yield vs. population density, a critical value of population density exists, below which the sediment yield increases with the increase of population density and over which the sediment yield increases with the decrease of population density. The phenomenon essentially reflects the influence of natural factors, such as topography, precipitation and soil property, and some human activities on sediment yield. The region with a higher population density than critical value is located in the east of the study area and is characterized by plains, hills and low mountains, whereas the opposite is located in the west and characterized by middle and high mountains. In the eastern region, more people live on the lands with a low slope where regional soil erosion is slight; therefore, sediment yield is negatively related with population density. In contrast, in the western region, the population tends to aggregate in the areas with abundant soil and water resources which usually lead to a higher intensity of natural erosion, and in turn, high-intensity agricultural practices in these areas may further strengthen local soil erosion. It is also found that population tends to move from the areas with bad environment and high sediment yield to the areas with more comfortable environment and less sediment yield. The natural factors have greater influence on sediment yield of western region than that of eastern region. Generally, the natural factors play a dominant role on sediment yield in the Upper Yangtze River.

Validating MODIS-derived land surface evapotranspiration with in situ measurements at two AmeriFlux sites in a semiarid region

Reducing uncertainties in the estimation of land surface evapotranspiration (ET) from remote-sensing data is essential to better understand earth-atmosphere interactions. This paper demonstrates the applicability of temperature-vegetation index triangle (T-s-VI) method in estimating regional ET and evaporative fraction (EF, defined as the ratio of latent heat flux to surface available energy) from MODIS/Terra and MODIS/Aqua products in a semiarid region. We have compared the satellite-based estimates of ET and EF with eddy covariance measurements made over 4 years at two semiarid grassland sites: Audubon Ranch (AR) and Kendall Grassland (KG). The lack of closure in the eddy covariance measured surface energy components is shown to be more serious at MODIS/Aqua overpass time than that at MODIS/Terra overpass time for both AR and KG sites. The T-s-VI-derived EF could reproduce in situ EF reasonably well with BIAS and root-mean-square difference (RMSD) of less than 0.07 and 0.13, respectively. Surface net radiation has been shown to be systematically overestimated by as large as about 60 W/m(2). Satisfactory validation results of the T-s-VI-derived sensible and latent heat fluxes have been obtained with RMSD within 54 W/m(2). The simplicity and yet easy use of the T-s-VI triangle method show a great potential in estimating regional ET with highly acceptable accuracy that is of critical significance in better understanding water and energy budgets on the Earth. Nevertheless, more validation work should be carried out over various climatic regions and under other different land use/land cover conditions in the future.

Tectonic geomorphology of the Ryukyu Trench-Arc-Backarc System: geological-geophysical exploration and mapping

OKINAWA TROUGH; BASIN

Origin, development and evolutionary model of shelf desertization environment in late stage of Upper Pleistocene

Based on the study of palaeo-environmental evolution in the shelves of the Eastern China Seas, the concept of ''shelf desertization'' in the late stage of Upper Pleistocene is defined; the environmental background and evolutionary process of shelf desertization are analysed. Study on the records of subbottom profiling and the data of core samples from shelf areas revealed that during low sea-level stages, the sedimentary environment in the exposed shelf plains was dominated by aeolian depositional process under cold and dry climatic conditions, i.e. under the action of strong winter-monsoon winds. Parts of the exposed marine strata were disintegrated, and aeolian sand dunes were formed on the disintegrated marine deposits, from which the finer sediment grains were blown away by wind and deposited in the downwind areas to form the derivative loess deposits. Thus a desertization environmental system was formed in the exposed shelf plains of the Eastern China Seas.

基于工程地质力学的岩土工程加固理论、技术与实践

In the engineering reinforcement of-rock and soil mass, engineers must consider how to obtain better reinforcing effect at the cost of less reinforcing expense, which, in fact, is the aim of reinforcement design. In order to accomplish the purpose, they require not only researching the material used to reinforce and its structure, but also taking into account of several important geological factors, such as the structure and property of rock and soil mass. How to improve the reinforcing effect according to engineering geomechanical principle at the respect of the reinforcement of engineering soil and rock mass is studied and discussed in this paper. The author studies the theory, technology and practice of geotechnical reinforcement based on engineering geomechanics, taking example for the soil treatment of Zhengzhou Airport, the effect analysis of reinforcement to the slope on the left bank of Wuqiangxi Hydropower Station and the reinforcing design of the No. 102 Landslide and unique sand-slide slope on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. The paper is comprised of two parts for the convenience of discussion. In the first part, from the first chapter to the fifth chapter, trying to perform the relevant research and application at the viewpoint of soil mass engineering geomechanics, the author mainly discusses the study of reinforcing soft ground soil through dynamical consolidation and its application. Then, in the second part, from the sixth chapter to the eleventh chapter, the study of new technologies in the rock slope reinforcement and their application are discussed. The author finds that not only better reinforcing effect can be gained in the research where the principle and method of rock mass engineering geomechanics is adopted, but also new reinforcing technologies can be put forward. Zhengzhou Airport is an important one in central plains. It lies on Yellow River alluvial deposit and the structure of stratum is complex and heterogeneous. The area of airport is very large, which can result in differential settlement easily, damage of airport and aircraft accident, whereas, there are no similar experiences to dispose the foundation, so the foundation treatment become a principal problem. During the process of treatment, the method of dynamic compaction was adopted after compared with other methods using the theory of synthetic integration. Dynamic compaction is an important method to consolidate foundation, which was successfully used in the foundation of Zhengzhou Airport. For fill foundation, controlling the thickness of fill so as to make the foundation treatment can reach the design demand and optimum thickness of the fill is a difficult problem. Considering this problem, the author proposed a calculation method to evaluate the thickness of fill. The method can consider not only the self-settlement of fill but also the settlement of the ground surface under applied load so as to ensure the settlement occurred during the using period can satisfy the design demand. It is proved that the method is correct after using it to choose reasonable energy of dynamic compaction to treat foundation. At the same time, in order to examine the effect of dynamic compaction, many monitor methods were adopted in the test such as static loading test, modulus of resilience test, deep pore pressure -test, static cone penetration test and the variation of the pore volume measurement. Through the tests, the author summarized the discipline of the accumulation and dissipation of pore pressure in Yellow River alluvial deposit under the action of dynamic compaction, gave a correct division of the property change of silt and clay under dynamic compaction, determined the bearing capacity of foundation after treatment and weighted the reinforcing effect of dynamic consolidation from the variation of the soil particle in microcosmic and the parameter of soil mass' density. It can be considered that the compactness of soil is in proportion to the energy of dynamic compaction. This conclusion provided a reference to the research of the "Problem of Soil Structure-the Central Problem of Soil Mechanics in 21 Century ". It is also important to strengthen rock mass for water conservancy and electric power engineering. Slip-resistance pile and anchoring adit full of reinforced concrete are usually adopted in engineering experience to strengthen rock mass and very important for engineering. But there also some deficiency such as the weakest section can't be highlighted, the monitor is inconvenient and the diameter of pile and adit is very large etc. The author and his supervisor professor Yangzhifa invented prestressed slip-resistance pile and prestressed anchoring adit full of reinforced concrete, utilizing the advantage that the prestressed structure has better anti-tensile characteristic (this invention is to be published). These inventions overcome the disadvantages of general slip-resistance pile and anchoring adit full of reinforced concrete and have the functions of engineering prospecting, strengthening, drainage and monitor simultaneous, so they have better strengthened effect and be more convenient for monitor and more economical than traditional methods. Drainage is an important factor in treatments of rock mass and slop. In view of the traditional drainage method that drainage pore often be clogged so as to resulted in incident, professor Yangzhifa invented the method and setting of guide penetration by fiber bundle. It would take good effect to use it in prestressed slip-resistance pile and anchoring adit full of reinforced concrete. In this paper, the author took example for anchoring adit full of reinforced concrete used to strengthen Wuqiangxi left bank to simulate the strengthened effect after consolidated by prestressed slip-resistance pile, took example for 102 landslide occurred along Sichuan-Tibet highway to simulate the application of slip-resistance pile and the new technology of drainage. At the same time the author proposed the treatment method of flowing sand in Sichuan-Tibet highway, which will benefit the study on strengthening similar engineering. There are five novelties in the paper with the author's theoretical study and engineering practice: 1. Summarizing the role of pore water pressure accumulation and dissipation of the Yellow River alluvial and diluvial soil under the action of dynamical consolidation, which has instructive significance in the engineering construction under the analogical engineering geological conditions in the future. It has not been researched by the predecessors. 2. Putting forward the concept of density D in microcosmic based on the microcosmical structure study of the soil sample. Adopting D to weight the reinforcing effect of dynamic consolidation is considered to be appropriate by the means of comparing the D values of Zhengzhou Airport's ground soil before with after dynamically consolidating reinforcement, so a more convenient balancing method can be provided for engineering practice. 3. According to the deep research into the soil mass engineering geology, engineering rock and soil science, soil mechanics, as well as considerable field experiments, improving the consolidating method in airport construction, from the conventional method, which is dynamically compactmg original ground surface firstly, then filling soil and dynamically layer-consolidating or layer-compacting at last to the upgraded method, which is performing dynamical consolidation after filling soil to place totally at the extent of the certain earth-filling depth. The result of the dynamical consolidation not only complies with the specifications, but also reduces the soil treatment investment by 10 million RMB. 4. Proposing the method for calculating the height of the filled soil by the means of estimating the potential displacement produced in the original ground surface and the filled earth soil under the possible load, selecting the appropriate dynamically-compacting power and determining the virtual height of the filled earth soil. The method is proved to be effective and scientific. 5. According to the thought of Engineering Geomechanics Metal-Synthetic Methodology (EGMS), patenting two inventions (to the stage of roclamation, with Professor Yang Zhi-fa, the cooperative tutor, and etc.) in which multi-functions, engineering geological investigation, reinforcement, drainage and strength remedy, are integrated all over in one body at the viewpoint of the breakage mechanism of the rock slope.

Geomorfologiczne uwarunkowania rozwoju sieci komunikacyjnej na obszarze młodoglacjalnym (zlewnia Perznicy, Pojezierze Drawskie

The aim of the studies in the Perznica River catchment were relief changes caused by the development of transportation infrastructure. This type of transformation is dependable on the state of economy and the settlements. The development of transportation network in the last two hundred years was examined through the analysis of archival cartographic materials – maps from the years 1789, 1855, 1877, 1935 – and the comparison with the situation from mid 1980s. The Perznica River catchment has an area of 249 km2 and it is located in north-western Poland in the central part of the Drawskie Lakeland macroregion, which belongs to the West Pomeranian Lakeland. The heterogeneous Perznica River catchment relief has a denivelation of 159 m and is within 60 and 219 m a.s.l. The study area is within the Parsęta River lobe. A number of subzones, whose morphological diversity and diversity of sediments lithofacies is mainly a reflection of areal deglaciation of the continental ice-sheet marginal zone, has been distinguished and these are: • subzone of the internal kame moraine – the undulated moraine upland, diversified by kame forms and kettle holes, • subzone of ice-free space forms – the uplands of kame plateaux, • subzone of melt-out lake basins – Lake Wielatowo basin with a characteristic collar ridge, • morphological levels of the northern Pomeranian sloping surface – mainly flat moraine uplands and small outwashes. The economic development of the Perznica River catchment advanced in close connection with the physical and geographical context, mainly with the relief, soils and hydrological conditions. As a result, the flat moraine uplands and marginal outflow plains, which were easiest to cultivate, have been developed and populated faster than any other. Since the early medieval period, large, compact villages, often centered around big estates, were emerging in those areas. In areas with a high relief energy–kame-melt moraines, ice-free space forms and ridges around melt-out lake basins–farming entered on a larger scale from the eighteenth century. Scattered settlements in those areas forced the creation of a dense access road network to farms and fields. In the case of anthropogenic forms of transportation with denivelation exceeding 1 m in the study area, road excavations are present for 37.3 km, road undercuttings for 43.8 km and road embankments for 38.7 km in total length. That gives a high ratio of density of such forms, equal to 2.1 km per km–2.

Among the Sioux : a story of the Twin Cities and the two Dakotas / by R.J. Creswell ; introduction by David R. Breed.

http://www.archive.org/details/amongsiouxstoryo00cresiala

History, revolution and the British popular novel: historical fiction in the romantic age

“History, Revolution and the British Popular Novel” takes as its focus the significant role which historical fiction played within the French Revolution debate and its aftermath. Examining the complex intersection of the genre with the political and historical dialogue generated by the French Revolution crisis, the thesis contends that contemporary fascination with the historical episode of the Revolution, and the fundamental importance of history to the disputes which raged about questions of tradition and change, and the meaning of the British national past, led to the emergence of increasingly complex forms of fictional historical narrative during the “war of ideas.” Considering the varying ways in which novelists such as Charlotte Smith, William Godwin, Mary Robinson, Helen Craik, Clara Reeve, John Moore, Edward Sayer, Mary Charlton, Ann Thomas, George Walker and Jane West engaged with the historical contexts of the Revolution debate, my discussion juxtaposes the manner in which English Jacobin novelists inserted the radical critique of the Jacobin novel into the wider arena of history with anti-Jacobin deployments of the historical to combat the revolutionary threat and internal moves for socio-political restructuring. I argue that the use of imaginative historical narrative to contribute to the ongoing dialogue surrounding the Revolution, and offer political and historical guidance to readers, represented a significant element within the literature of the Revolution crisis. The thesis also identifies the diverse body of historical fiction which materialised amidst the Revolution controversy as a key context within which to understand the emergence of Scott’s national historical novel in 1814, and the broader field of historical fiction in the era of Waterloo. Tracing the continued engagement with revolutionary and political concerns evident in the early Waverley novels, Frances Burney’s The Wanderer (1814), William Godwin’s Mandeville (1816), and Mary Shelley’s Valperga (1823), my discussion concludes by arguing that Godwin’s and Shelley’s extension of the mode of historical fiction initially envisioned by Godwin in the revolutionary decade, and their shared endeavour to retrieve the possibility enshrined within the republican past, appeared as a significant counter to the model of history and fiction developed by Walter Scott in the post-revolutionary epoch.

Indication of electron neutrino appearance from an accelerator-produced off-axis muon neutrino beam.

The T2K experiment observes indications of ν(μ) → ν(e) appearance in data accumulated with 1.43×10(20) protons on target. Six events pass all selection criteria at the far detector. In a three-flavor neutrino oscillation scenario with |Δm(23)(2)| = 2.4×10(-3)  eV(2), sin(2)2θ(23) = 1 and sin(2)2θ(13) = 0, the expected number of such events is 1.5±0.3(syst). Under this hypothesis, the probability to observe six or more candidate events is 7×10(-3), equivalent to 2.5σ significance. At 90% C.L., the data are consistent with 0.03(0.04) < sin(2)2θ(13) < 0.28(0.34) for δ(CP) = 0 and a normal (inverted) hierarchy.

The Effects of Geography, Environment and Phylogeny on Community Assembly and Gene Flow Dynamics

It is increasingly evident that evolutionary processes play a role in how ecological communities are assembled. However the extend to which evolution influences how plants respond to spatial and environmental gradients and interact with each other is less clear. In this dissertation I leverage evolutionary tools and thinking to understand how space and environment affect community composition and patterns of gene flow in a unique system of Atlantic rainforest and restinga (sandy coastal plains) habitats in Southeastern Brazil.

In chapter one I investigate how space and environment affect the population genetic structure and gene flow of Aechmea nudicaulis, a bromeliad species that co-occurs in forest and restinga habitats. I genotyped seven microsatellite loci and sequenced one chloroplast DNA region for individuals collected in 7 pairs of forest / restinga sites. Bayesian genetic clustering analyses show that populations of A. nudicaulis are geographically structured in northern and southern populations, a pattern consistent with broader scale phylogeographic dynamics of the Atlantic rainforest. On the other hand, explicit migration models based on the coalescent estimate that inter-habitat gene flow is less common than gene flow between populations in the same habitat type, despite their geographic discontinuity. I conclude that there is evidence for repeated colonization of the restingas from forest populations even though the steep environmental gradient between habitats is a stronger barrier to gene flow than geographic distance.

In chapter two I use data on 2800 individual plants finely mapped in a restinga plot and on first-year survival of 500 seedlings to understand the roles of phylogeny, functional traits and abiotic conditions in the spatial structuring of that community. I demonstrate that phylogeny is a poor predictor of functional traits in and that convergence in these traits is pervasive. In general, the community is not phylogenetically structured, with at best 14% of the plots deviating significantly from the null model. The functional traits SLA, leaf dry matter content (LDMC), and maximum height also showed no clear pattern of spatial structuring. On the other hand, leaf area is strongly overdispersed across all spatial scales. Although leaf area overdispersion would be generally taken as evidence of competition, I argue that interpretation is probably misleading. Finally, I show that seedling survival is dramatically increased when they grow shaded by an adult individual, suggesting that seedlings are being facilitated. Phylogenetic distance to their adult neighbor has no influence on rates of survival though. Taken together, these results indicate that phylogeny has very limited influence on the fine scale assembly of restinga communities.