The Gulf: A young sea in decline Sheppard, Charles; Al-Husiani, Mohsen; Al-Jamali, F. ...
Marine pollution bulletin,
January 2010, 2010, 2010-Jan, 2010-01-00, 20100101, Letnik:
60, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This review examines the substantial changes that have taken place in marine habitats and resources of the Gulf over the past decade. The habitats are especially interesting because of the naturally ...high levels of temperature and salinity stress they experience, which is important in a changing world climate. However, the extent of all natural habitats is changing and their condition deteriorating because of the rapid development of the region and, in some cases from severe, episodic warming episodes.
Major impacts come from numerous industrial, infrastructure-based, and residential and tourism development activities, which together combine, synergistically in some cases, to cause the observed deterioration in most benthic habitats. Substantial sea bottom dredging for material and its deposition in shallow water to extend land or to form a basis for huge developments, directly removes large areas of shallow, productive habitat, though in some cases the most important effect is the accompanying sedimentation or changes to water flows and conditions. The large scale of the activities compared to the relatively shallow and small size of the water body is a particularly important issue.
Important from the perspective of controlling damaging effects is the limited cross-border collaboration and even intra-country collaboration among government agencies and large projects. Along with the accumulative nature of impacts that occur, even where each project receives environmental assessment or attention, each is treated more or less alone, rarely in combination. However, their combination in such a small, biologically interacting sea exacerbates the overall deterioration. Very few similar areas exist which face such a high concentration of disturbance, and the prognosis for the Gulf continuing to provide abundant natural resources is poor.
The Bay of Bengal (BoB) is known to experience low productivity but high sinking carbon fluxes to the bottom, and this paradox is attributed to mineral ballast of organic matter. We found for the ...first time that primary production in the BoB is higher, and it is supported by dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and phosphorus (DOP) transported from the shelf regions through eddies. Both DON and DOP contribute up to 70–99% to the total dissolved nutrients in the waters above the thermocline. DON and DOP displayed positive relationship with primary production in the upper 25 m of water column, suggesting that organic nutrients significantly support primary producers. Primary production and export production in the BoB is comparable to that in the Arabian Sea, in contrast to the earlier belief that it has low production due to lack of inorganic nutrients caused by strong salinity stratification.
Key Points
High primary production in the Bay of Bengal is supported by organic nutrients
Anticyclonic eddies bring organic nutrients from coastal to offshore regions
Primary production in the upper 25 m contributes to 70% of column production
Atmospheric deposition of pollutants decreases pH and increases the nutrient concentration in the surface water. To examine its impact on coastal phytoplankton composition and primary production, ...monthly atmospheric aerosol samples were mixed with coastal waters in the microcosm experiments. These experiments suggested that the biomass of Bacillariophyceae, Dinophyceae and Chlorophyceae were increased and primary production of the coastal waters increased by 3 to 19% due to the addition of aeolian nutrients. The increase in primary production displayed significant relation with a concentration of sulphate and nitrate in the atmospheric aerosols suggesting that both decreases in pH and fertilization enhanced primary production. The impact of acidification on primary production was found to be 22%, whereas 78% was contributed by the nutrient increase. The atmospheric pollution is increasing rapidly over the northern Indian Ocean since past two decades due to rapid industrialization. Hence, it is suggested that the impact of atmospheric pollution on the coastal ecosystem must be included in the numerical models to predict possible changes in the coastal ecosystem due to climate change.
Triheterocyclic thiazoles containing coumarin and carbostyril (1-aza coumarin) have been synthesized by the reaction of the
in situ generated 4-thioureidomethyl carbostyril and 3-bromoacetyl ...coumarins. The new compounds have been tested for their
in vivo analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities. Qualitative SAR studies indicate that, the chloro substitution at C-7 in carbostyril and 6,8-dibromo substitution in the coumarin ring enhance anti-inflammatory activity. These compounds were also found to provide significant protection against acetic acid writhing in animal models. All the compounds have been characterized by IR,
1H NMR,
13C NMR and mass spectrometry.
Display omitted Triheterocyclic thiazoles containing coumarin and carbostyril (1-aza coumarin) have been synthesized by the reaction of the
in situ generated 4-thioureidomethyl carbostyril and 3-bromoacetyl coumarins. The new compounds have been tested for their
in vivo analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities. They were found to possess considerable analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity. All the compounds were characterized by IR,
1H NMR,
13C NMR and mass spectra.
A microwave assisted novel domino synthetic approach to trifluoromethyl substituted imidazo1,2-
a
pyrimidin-5(1
H
)-one derivatives has been developed via a multi component cascade strategy in a ...single operation. The synthesized compounds can find application as structural components of biologically active compounds.
Energetic flares are observed in the Galactic supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* from radio to X-ray wavelengths. On a few occasions, simultaneous flares have been detected in IR and X-ray ...observations, but clear counterparts at longer wavelengths have not been seen. We present a flare observed over several hours on 2006 July 17 with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Keck II telescope, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, and the Submillimeter Array. All telescopes observed strong flare events, but the submillimeter peak is found to occur nearly 100 minutes after the X-ray peak. Submillimeter polarization data show linear polarization in the excess flare emission, increasing from 9% to 17% as the flare passes through its peak, consistent with a transition from optically thick to thin synchrotron emission. The temporal and spectral behavior of the flare require that the energetic electrons responsible for the emission cool faster than expected from their radiative output. This is consistent with adiabatic cooling in an expanding emission region, with X-rays produced through self-Compton scattering, although not consistent with the simplest model of such expansion. We also present a submillimeter flare that followed a bright IR flare on 2005 July 31. Compared to 2006, this event had a larger peak IR flux and similar submillimeter flux, but it lacked measurable X-ray emission. It also showed a shorter delay between the IR and submillimeter peaks. Based on these events we propose a synchrotron and self-Compton model to relate the submillimeter lag and the variable IR/X-ray luminosity ratio.
The primary clinical outcome measure for evaluating multiple sclerosis in clinical trials has been Kurtzke's expanded disability status scale (EDSS). New therapies appear to favourably impact the ...course of multiple sclerosis and render continued use of placebo control groups more difficult. Consequently, future trials are likely to compare active treatment groups which will most probably require increased sample sizes in order to detect therapeutic efficacy. Because more responsive outcome measures will be needed for active arm comparison studies, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Advisory Committee on Cinical Trials of New Agents in Multiple Sclerosis appointed a Task Force that was charged with developing improved clinical outcome measures. This Task Force acquired contemporary clinical trial and historical multiple sclerosis data for meta-analyses of primary and secondary outcome assessments to provide a basis for recommending a new outcome measure. A composite measure encompassing the major clinical dimensions of arm, leg and cognitive function was identified and termed the multiple sclerosis functional composite (MSFC). The MSFC consists of three objective quantitative tests of neurological function which are easy to administer. Change in this MSFC over the first year of observation predicted subsequent change in the EDSS, suggesting that the MSFC is more sensitive to change than the EDSS. This paper provides details concerning the development and testing of the MSFC.
Mango (
Mangiferaindica
L.) fruits are generally classified based on peel color into green, yellow, and red types. Mango peel turns from green to yellow or red or retain green colors during ripening. ...The carotenoids and anthocyanins are the important pigments responsible for the colors of fruits. In the present study, peels of different colored cultivars at three ripening stages were characterized for pigments, colors, and gene expression analysis. The yellow colored cultivar “Arka Anmol” showed higher carotenoid content, wherein β-carotene followed by violaxanthin were the major carotenoid compounds that increased during ripening. The red colored cultivars were characterized with higher anthocyanins with cyanidin-3-O-monoglucosides and peonidin-3-O-glucosides as the major anthocyanins. The gene expression analysis by qRT-PCR showed the higher expression of carotenoid biosynthetic genes viz.
lycopene
-β-
cyclase
and
violaxanthin
-
de-epoxidase
in yellow colored
cv
. Arka Anmol, and the expression was found to increase during ripening. However, in red colored
cv
. “Janardhan Pasand,” there is increased regulation of all anthocyanin biosynthetic genes including transcription factors MYB and basic helix loop. This indicated the regulation of the anthocyanins by these genes in red mango peel. The results showed that the accumulation pattern of particular pigments and higher expression of specific biosynthetic genes in mango peel impart different colors.
The ungauged wet semi-arid watershed cluster, Seethagondi, lies in the Adilabad district of Telangana in India and is prone to severe erosion and water scarcity. The runoff and soil loss data at ...watershed, catchment, and field level are necessary for planning soil and water conservation interventions. In this study, an attempt was made to develop a spatial soil loss estimation model for Seethagondi cluster using RUSLE coupled with ARCGIS and was used to estimate the soil loss spatially and temporally. The daily rainfall data of Aphrodite for the period from 1951 to 2007 was used, and the annual rainfall varied from 508 to 1351 mm with a mean annual rainfall of 950 mm and a mean erosivity of 6789 MJ mm ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ year⁻¹. Considerable variation in land use land cover especially in crop land and fallow land was observed during normal and drought years, and corresponding variation in the erosivity, C factor, and soil loss was also noted. The mean value of C factor derived from NDVI for crop land was 0.42 and 0.22 in normal year and drought years, respectively. The topography is undulating and major portion of the cluster has slope less than 10°, and 85.3 % of the cluster has soil loss below 20 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. The soil loss from crop land varied from 2.9 to 3.6 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in low rainfall years to 31.8 to 34.7 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in high rainfall years with a mean annual soil loss of 12.2 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. The soil loss from crop land was higher in the month of August with an annual soil loss of 13.1 and 2.9 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in normal and drought year, respectively. Based on the soil loss in a normal year, the interventions recommended for 85.3 % of area of the watershed includes agronomic measures such as contour cultivation, graded bunds, strip cropping, mixed cropping, crop rotations, mulching, summer plowing, vegetative bunds, agri-horticultural system, and management practices such as broad bed furrow, raised sunken beds, and harvesting available water using farm ponds and percolation tanks. This methodology can be adopted for estimating the soil loss from similar ungauged watersheds with deficient data and for planning suitable soil and water conservation interventions for the sustainable management of the watersheds.
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