Utsunomiya University

About: Utsunomiya University is a education organization based out in Utsunomiya, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Laser & Holography. The organization has 4139 authors who have published 6812 publications receiving 91975 citations. The organization is also known as: Utsunomiya daigaku.

Intra- and interspecific variation in wood density and fine-scale spatial distribution of stand-level wood density in a northern Thai tropical montane forest

Abstract: Tropical tree wood density is often related to other species-specific functional traits, e.g. size, growth rate and mortality. We would therefore expect significant associations within tropical forests between the spatial distributions of stand-level wood density and micro-environments when interspecific variation in wood density is larger than intraspecific variation and when habitat-based species assembly is important in the forest. In this study, we used wood cores collected from 515 trees of 72 species in a 15-ha plot in northern Thailand to analyse intra- and interspecific variation in wood density and the spatial association of stand-level wood density. Intraspecific variation was lower than interspecific variation (20% vs. 80% of the total variation), indicating that species-specific differences in wood density, rather than phenotypic plasticity, are the major source of variation in wood density at the study site. Wood density of individual species was significantly negatively related to maximum diameter, growth rate of sapling diameter and mortality of saplings. Stand-level mean wood density was significantly negatively related to elevation, slope convexity, sapling growth rate and sapling mortality, and positively related to slope inclination. East-facing slopes had significantly lower stand-level mean wood densities than west-facing slopes. We hypothesized that ridges and east-facing slopes in the study forest experience strong and frequent wind disturbance, and that this severe impact may lead to faster stand turnover, creating conditions that favour fast-growing species with low wood density.

Coherence holography by achromatic 3-D field correlation of generic thermal light with an imaging Sagnac shearing interferometer

Abstract: We propose a new technique for achromatic 3-D field correlation that makes use of the characteristics of both axial and lateral magnifications of imaging through a common-path Sagnac shearing interferometer. With this technique, we experimentally demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, 3-D image reconstruction of coherence holography with generic thermal light. By virtue of the achromatic axial shearing implemented by the difference in axial magnifications in imaging, the technique enables coherence holography to reconstruct a 3-D object with an axial depth beyond the short coherence length of the thermal light.

Isolation and Screening of Indigenous Plant Growth-promoting Rhizobacteria from Different Rice Cultivars in Afghanistan Soils.

Abstract: To develop biofertilizers for rice in Afghanistan, 98 plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria were isolated from rice plants and their morphological and physiological characteristics, such as indole-3-acetic acid production, acetylene reduction, phosphate and potassium solubilization, and siderophore production, were evaluated. The genetic diversity of these bacteria was also analyzed based on 16S rRNA gene sequences. Of 98 bacteria, 89.7% produced IAA, 54.0% exhibited nitrogenase activity, and 40% showed phosphate solubilization and siderophore production. Some isolates assigned to Pseudomonas (brassicacearum, chengduensis, plecoglossicida, resinovorans, and straminea) formed a relationship with rice, and P. resinovorans and P. straminea showed nitrogen fixation. Rhizobium borbori and R. rosettiformans showed a relationship with rice plants and nitrogen fixation. Among the isolates examined, AF134 and AF137 belonging to Enterobacter ludwigii and P. putida produced large amounts of IAA (92.3 μg mL-1) and exhibited high nitrogenase activity (647.4 nmol C2H4 h-1), respectively. In the plant growth test, more than 70% of the inoculated isolates showed significantly increased root and shoot dry weights. Highly diverse bacterial isolates showing promising rice growth-promoting traits were obtained from Afghanistan alkaline soils.

Odometry correction with localization based on landmarkless magnetic map for navigation system of indoor mobile robot

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss on how to correct odometry with localization based on DC magnetic field occurred in the environment for a navigation system of indoor mobile robot. The DC magnetic field occurred in the environment is known that it is produced by rebar of the buildings, magnetic materials etc. It is time invariant in case of there is not any displacement of magnetic materials. In this work, we apply a magnetic sensor to detect this magnetic field to build a magnetic map. The robot localizes by matching sensor readings against the DC magnetic field stored in magnetic map. The experimental results indicate that the robot is possible to localize accurately based on our proposed method and by applying the localization result to compensate the odometry, the cumulative error can be eliminated.