Search

Rainfall and earthquakes are two major triggering factors for landslides. Previous studies have often used critical rainfall for assessment of occurrence of landslides induced by simultaneous rainfall and earthquakes; there has been minimal exploration of antecedent rainfall, which directly affects water content and saturation degree of soil before landslides occur due to both rainfall and earthquakes. Here, this study developed a model to assess the landslide probability of an unsaturated slope considering earthquake effect and under different critical and antecedent rainfall conditions. The proposed model includes two steps. In step 1, antecedent and critical rainfall are used as initial and boundary conditions, respectively, to simulate rainfall infiltration into an infinite unsaturated soil slope; this determines the depth of the wet zone. In step 2, factor of safety is calculated with consideration of seismic effects in the infinite slope model, using the wet zone depth determined in step 1. The spatial distribution of these factors of safety is used to classify susceptibility levels of landslide occurrence. The proposed model was assessed using data from a landslide event in Atsuma, Japan that had been caused by rainfall and earthquakes. The results showed that the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 83.4%, while confusion matrix-based accuracy was 63.7%. The proposed model was applied to Mt. Umyeon, Korea to evaluate the likelihood of landslide occurrence due to rainfall and earthquakes, according to four susceptibility levels: very low, low, moderate, and high. The results indicated that antecedent rainfall strongly affects the spatial probability of landslides induced by simultaneous rainfall and earthquakes. The proposed method may provide reasonable predictions for landslide susceptibility assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satsuma mandarin (Citrus unshiu Marc. cv. Miyagawa-wase) is the most widely cultivated citrus variety in Korea. Although most varieties are imported from Japan, efforts have focused on developing new domestic varieties. We produced mutants by irradiating C. unshiu Marc. cv. Miyagawa-wase scions with gamma rays and grafting them onto C. unshiu Marc. cv. Miyagawa-wase branches. We compared the characteristics of these mutants with Miyagawa-wase fruit as a control. A mutant line named Jedae-unshiu with a unique fruit shape was selected for investigation in detail. The phenotype of Jedae-unshiu fruit demonstrated vertical troughs on the flavedo, smooth albedo without rough protruding fibers, and good adhesion between peel and flesh. In addition, Jedae-unshiu had thicker peels and higher fruit hardness than the control. Higher levels of hesperetin and narirutin, representative flavonoids, accumulated in the peel and flesh of Jedae-unshiu than those of the control. Cellular-level microscopic observations of the mature fruit peels demonstrated epidermal cell disruption in the control but not in Jedae-unshiu. Our results suggest that Jedae-unshiu has high possibility for development as a good storage variety containing large amounts of flavonoids, in addition to potential for ornamental value due to the unique shape of the fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the mobile finance services and the liability issues concerned with the increase in use of mobile devices for finance. It discusses the impact of mobile services on the business opportunities of financial institutions, merchants, mobile device manufacturers, mobile network operators and also software providers. Information on the liability issues in South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries due to mobile finance is also presented.

Japan has more robots than any other country with robots contributing to many areas of society, including manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, few studies have examined Japanese attitudes toward robots, and none has used implicit measures. This study compares attitudes among the faculty of a US and a Japanese university. Although the Japanese faculty reported many more experiences with robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties had more pleasant associations with humans. In addition, although the US faculty reported people were more threatening than robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties associated weapons more strongly with robots than with humans. Despite the media’s hype about Japan’s robot ‘craze,’ response similarities suggest factors other than attitude better explain robot adoption. These include differences in history and religion, personal and human identity, economic structure, professional specialization, and government policy. Japanese robotics offers a unique reference from which other nations may learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• MSGD model was introduced to LES as wall roughness model and this was applied to parallel plate flow of Li. • Vortices on rough wall keep finer structure than that on smooth wall. • Surface deformation of the Li jet and the vortex structure inner the Li jet were evaluated by using SAS turbulent model. • Secondary flow inner the Li jet and the contact angle affected to the surface deformation of the Li jet. Liquid lithium (Li) jet is planned as a beam target in fusion neutron sources (FNSs), such as IFMIF in Japan and EU, A-FNS in Japan and IFMIF-DONES in EU. For the safety and the efficiency of such FNSs, it is desirable to keep the high-speed Li jet stable. In addition to many experimental researches, numerical approaches using CFD simulation have been also required to evaluate the detailed flow pattern inner the Li jet because of the opacity. In our previous simulation, it was found that the vortex structure under the free surface of the Li jet had the strong influence on the surface fluctuation using LES simulation. In this study, for evaluating the interaction between the Li surface behavior and the flow pattern inner the Li jet, two simulations are conducted: one is the LES simulation considering wall roughness, and another one is the RANS simulation using full-scale model with the nozzle and the Li jet. The influence of wall roughness on the vortex structure becomes an issue in long-term operation of actual FNSs, and the influence of the secondary flow generated due to the side wall on the surface shape is evaluated in the latter simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]