Low-frequency earthquakes in Shikoku, Japan, and their relationship to episodic tremor and slip

Non-volcanic seismic tremor was discovered in the Nankai trough subduction zone in southwest Japan and subsequently identified in the Cascadia subduction zone. In both locations, tremor is observed to coincide temporally with large, slow slip events on the plate interface downdip of the seismogenic zone. The relationship between tremor and aseismic slip remains uncertain, however, largely owing to difficulty in constraining the source depth of tremor. In southwest Japan, a high quality borehole seismic network allows identification of coherent S-wave (and sometimes P-wave) arrivals within the tremor, whose sources are classified as low-frequency earthquakes. As low-frequency earthquakes comprise at least a portion of tremor, understanding their mechanism is critical to understanding tremor as a whole. Here, we provide strong evidence that these earthquakes occur on the plate interface, coincident with the inferred zone of slow slip. The locations and characteristics of these events suggest that they are generated by shear slip during otherwise aseismic transients, rather than by fluid flow. High pore-fluid pressure in the immediate vicinity, as implied by our estimates of seismic P- and S-wave speeds, may act to promote this transient mode of failure. Low-frequency earthquakes could potentially contribute to seismic hazard forecasting by providing a new means to monitor slow slip at depth.     

教育环境与儿童空间认知的城镇空间组成研究

文中从发展对儿童适宜的生活环境的观点出发来研究城市住房项目．该项研究是针对Makahari湾城镇的中层住宅及附属教育设施的公寓区展开的．文中采用草图来确定Makahari湾城镇中儿童生活与其环境之间的关系．1999年进行首次研究，接着在2003年进行第二次研究，此间该镇的建设有所发展．具体研究是利用儿童凭记忆点出的关于他们的住宅、学校、玩耍场地和其它较多被注意的场所的草图来进行的．在两次研究期间，该地区发生了许多实体环境的变化，这些变化能从儿童的草图的许多元素中反映出来．将这些草图中的变化加以对照、分析，并将环境的改变与儿童的空间认知的关系加以探讨，同时注意分析比较体现在草图中的区域范围。结果表明，儿童早期对目标物的了解能从Makahari湾的空间结构以及环境变化中得到增强，而两者都由方格的模式构成．经验、每目的生活以及对小学和儿童游戏场所的空间认知与儿童的生活环境息息相关．此项分析揭示了在一个发展中的住宅区中儿童对其生活环境的空间认知与其附属教育设施之间的关系．     

Molecular machinery for non-vesicular trafficking of ceramide

Synthesis and sorting of lipids are essential for membrane biogenesis; however, the mechanisms underlying the transport of membrane lipids remain little understood. Ceramide is synthesized at the endoplasmic reticulum and translocated to the Golgi compartment for conversion to sphingomyelin. The main pathway of ceramide transport to the Golgi is genetically impaired in a mammalian mutant cell line, LY-A. Here we identify CERT as the factor defective in LY-A cells. CERT, which is identical to a splicing variant of Goodpasture antigen-binding protein, is a cytoplasmic protein with a phosphatidylinositol-4-monophosphate-binding (PtdIns4P) domain and a putative domain for catalysing lipid transfer. In vitro assays show that this lipid-transfer-catalysing domain specifically extracts ceramide from phospholipid bilayers. CERT expressed in LY-A cells has an amino acid substitution that destroys its PtdIns4P-binding activity, thereby impairing its Golgi-targeting function. We conclude that CERT mediates the intracellular trafficking of ceramide in a non-vesicular manner.     

A fast construction method for spatial index GBD-tree

This paper proposes a fast initial construction method of the GBD-tree. The GDB tree has proper characteristics for management of large amount of 2 or 3 dimensional data. However, the GBD-tree needs long initial construction time by originally proposed one-by-one insertion method. A fast insertion method has been proposed, but it needs large size of buffer capable to hold index information of all entries. The paper proposes another fast initial construction method. The method requires only limited size of work space (buffer). The experimental results show the initial construction time reduces into a third or a quarter of the one-by-one insertion method. The memory efficiency and retrieval efficiency are also improved than the one-by-one insertion method.     

Occurrence of biopterin in the wings ofMorpho butterflies

A blue fluorescent compound was isolated fromMorpho butterfly wings. Based on thin layer chromatographic, UV and CD-spectrophotometric and HPLC analyses, the blue fluorescent compound was identified as L-erythro biopterin. Biopterin is a major component of blue fluorescent pteridines in bothM. sulkowskyi andM. adonis. Pterin and isoxanthopterin can also be detected as minor components in these species. This paper is the first to report the presence of biopterin in butterfly wings.     

brinker is a target of Dpp in Drosophila that negatively regulates Dpp-dependent genes

Growth and patterning of the Drosophila wing is controlled in part by the long-range organizing activities of the Decapentaplegic protein (Dpp). Dpp is synthesized by cells that line the anterior side of the anterior/posterior compartment border of the wing imaginal disc. From this source, Dpp is thought to generate a concentration gradient that patterns both anterior and posterior compartments. Among the gene targets that it regulates are optomotor blind (omb), spalt (sal), and daughters against dpp (dad). We report here the molecular cloning of brinker (brk), and show that brk expression is repressed by dpp. brk encodes, a protein that negatively regulates Dpp-dependent genes. Expression of brk in Xenopus embryos indicates that brk can also repress the targets of a vertebrate homologue of Dpp, bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP-4). The evolutionary conservation of Brk function underscores the importance of its negative role in proportioning Dpp activity.     

A fast construction method for spatial index GBD tree 

This paper proposes a fast initial construction method of the GBDtree. The GDB tree has proper characteristics for management of large amount of 2 or 3 dimensional data. However, the GBDtree needs long initial construction time by originally proposed onebyone insertion method. A fast insertion method has been proposed, but it needs large size of buffer capable to hold index information of all entries. The paper proposes another fast initial construction method. The method requires only limited size of work space (buffer). The experimental results show the initial construction time reduces into a third or a quarter of the onebyone insertion method. The memory efficiency and retrieval efficiency are also improved than the onebyone insertion method.