Holocene tephra deposits in the northern Okinawa Trough

The mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of sediments of Core CSH1, which was collected from the northern Okinawa Trough, indicate that large amounts of volcanic materials have deposited in the northern Okinawa Trough during the Holocene. On the basis of down-core variations in mineral and element contents of sediments, two layers in the uppermost section of Core CSH 1 characterized by high quartz, Na2O, MnO, K20, uranium contents and low contents of clay minerals, volatiles, Fe2O3, MgO, CaO and strontium, have been identified as the tephra deposits. Systematic grain-size measurements also suggest that sediments from the northern Okinawa Trough are made up of terrigenous materials and volcanic ashes with different proportion during the Holocene. The sedi- ments of tephra layers in Core CSH1 show bi-modal patterns in grain-size distribution with modal grain-sizes of 74.3 and 7.81 μm, respectively. According to the radiocarbon dating on shells of zooplankton foraminifera, two tephra layers in Core CSH1, formed at 7 250 and 10 870 a BP （cal）, approximately correspond to the K-Ah tephra [7 300 a BP （cal）] and the eruption of Kuju Volcano （12-10 ka BP）, respectively.

Corporate Reporting： An Integrated Approach to Legitimacy Claims

With the increasing pressure on companies to engage in corporate social responsibility （CSR）, it is paramount for businesses and organizations to gain social legitimacy through building trust and credibility towards their stakeholders. Corporate reporting is a major tool whereby they can demonstrate their transparency and their will to contribute to society. However, reporting is often addressed as a narrow and restricted discipline based on specific areas of communication like financial and CSR communication, which potentially can lead to ＂disconnected reporting＂. The aim of this paper is to address reporting within a framework of corporate communication, introducing the concept of corporate reporting as ＂an issue of integration＂ and to discuss the opportunities and challenges of corporate reporting as a driver for gaining social legitimacy. Recent research in corporate reporting and the development of standards by distinguished reporting agencies （e.g., Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler （KPMG）, A4S, PricewaterhouseCoopers （PwC）） seem to support this position, arguing that integrated reporting is ＂the way forward＂. Accordingly, the authors conclude that there is a need to include a broader range of aspects in the corporate reporting literature applying a strategic integrated approach by which corporate reporting may more explicitly help businesses and organizations gain social legitimacy towards their internal and external stakeholders.

DNA Copy Number Aberrations in Breast Cancer by Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization

Array comparative genomic hybridization （CGH） has been popularly used for analyzing DNA copy number variations in diseases like cancer. In this study, we investigated 82 sporadic samples from 49 breast cancer patients using 1-Mb resolution bacterial artificial chromosome （2GH arrays. A number of highly frequent genomic aberrations were discovered, which may act as ＂drivers＂ of tumor progression. Meanwhile, the genomic profiles of four ＂normal＂ breast tissue samples taken at least 2 cm away from the primary tumor sites were also found to have some genomic aberrations that recurred with high frequency in the primary tumors, which may have important implications for clinical therapy. Additionally, we performed class comparison and class prediction for various clinicopathological parameters, and a list of characteristic genomic aberrations associated with different clinicopathological phenotypes was compiled. Our study provides clues for further investigations of the underlying mechanisms of breast carcinogenesis.