Marine Monitoring Program: Annual report for inshore seagrass monitoring 2015-2016

The Marine Monitoring Program (MMP) undertaken in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lagoon, assesses the long-term effectiveness of the Australian and Queensland Government’s Reef Water Quality Protection Plan (Reef Plan). The MMP, established in 2005, is a critical component in the paddock to reef monitoring modelling and reporting program (P2R) that tracks changes in regional water quality and its impact on the GBR as land management practices are improved across Reef catchments. The inshore seagrass component of the MMP assessed seagrass abundance (per cent cover), community structure, relative meadow extent, reproductive health, and nutrient status from inshore seagrass meadows at 29 locations throughout the GBR. Sites were predominately lower littoral (only exposed to air at the lowest of low tides), hereafter referred to as intertidal, although four locations also included shallow subtidal meadows. Each of the Natural Resource Management regions (Cape York, Wet Tropics, Burdekin, Mackay Whitsunday, Fitzroy and Burnett Mary) were represented, including each of the major seagrass habitat types where possible (estuarine, coastal, reef, subtidal). Environmental pressures are also recorded including within-canopy water temperature, canopy light, sediment composition as well as macroalgae and epiphyte abundance, further data obtained from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and from the MMP inshore water quality subprogram

Marine Monitoring Program: Inshore seagrass, annual report for the sampling period 1st June 2013 - 31st May 2014

A key component of Reef Plan is the implementation of a long-term water quality and ecosystem monitoring program in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. James Cook University were contracted to conduct the intertidal seagrass monitoring component and produce this report, which examines the status and trend of Reef intertidal seagrass (detect long-term trends in seagrass abundance, community structure, distribution, reproductive health, and nutrient status from representative inshore seagrass meadows) and identifies response of seagrass to environmental drivers of change

Characterization of fracture reservoirs using static and dynamic data: From sonic and 3D seismic to permeability distribution

To characterize the Buena Vista Hills field, the authors have implemented methods of modeling, processing and interpretation. The modeling methods are based on deterministic and stochastic solutions. Deterministic solutions were developed in Phase 1 and applied in Phase 2 to simulate acoustic responses of laminated reservoirs. Specifically, the simulations were aimed at implementing processing techniques to correct P-wave and S-wave velocity logs for scattering effects caused by thin layering. The authors are also including a summary of the theory and the processing steps of this new method for predicting intrinsic dispersion and attenuation in Section 2. Since the objective for correcting velocity scattering effects is to predict intrinsic dispersion from velocity data, they are presenting an application to illustrate how to relate permeability anisotropy with intrinsic dispersion. Also, the theoretical solution for calculating full waveform dipole sonic that was developed in Phase 1 was applied to simulate dipole responses at different azimuthal source orientations. The results will be used to interpret the effects of anisotropy associated with the presence of vertical fractures at Buena Vista Hills. The results of the integration of core, well logs, and geology of Buena Vista Hills is also given in Section 2. The results of this integration will be considered as the input model for the inversion technique for processing production data. Section 3 summarizes accomplishments. In Section 4 the authors present a summary of the technology transfer and promotion efforts associated with this project. In the last section, they address the work to be done in the next six months and future work by applying the processing, modeling and inversion techniques developed in Phases 1 and 2 of this project

Active Galaxies in the UV

In this article we present different aspects of AGN studies demonstrating the importance of the UV spectral range. Most important diagnostic lines for studying the general physical conditions as well as the metalicities in the central broad line region in AGN are emitted in the UV. The UV/FUV continuum in AGN excites not only the emission lines in the immediate surrounding but it is responsible for the ionization of the intergalactic medium in the early stages of the universe. Variability studies of the emission line profiles of AGN in the UV give us information on the structure and kinematics of the immediate surrounding of the central supermassive black hole as well as on its mass itself.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, Ap&SS in pres

Maternal pre-pregnancy obesity, offspring cord blood DNA methylation, and offspring cardiometabolic health in early childhood: an epigenome-wide association study

Pre-pregnancy obesity is an established risk factor for adverse sex-specific cardiometabolic health in offspring. Epigenetic alterations, such as in DNA methylation (DNAm), are a hypothesized link; however, sex-specific epigenomic targets remain unclear. Leveraging data from the Newborn Epigenetics Study (NEST) cohort, linear regression models were used to identify CpG sites in cord blood leukocytes associated with pre-pregnancy obesity in 187 mother-female and 173 mother-male offsprings. DNAm in cord blood was measured using the Illumina HumanMethylation450k BeadChip. Replication analysis was conducted among the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort. Associations between pre-pregnancy obesity-associated CpG sites and offspring BMI z-score (BMIz) and blood pressure (BP) percentiles at 4–5-years of age were also examined. Maternal pre-pregnacy obesity was associated with 876 CpGs in female and 293 CpGs in male offspring (false discovery rate <5%). Among female offspring, 57 CpG sites, including the top 18, mapped to the TAPBP gene (range of effect estimates: −0.83% decrease to 4.02% increase in methylation). CpG methylation differences in the TAPBP gene were also observed among males (range of effect estimates: −0.30% decrease to 2.59% increase in methylation). While technically validated, none of the TAPBP CpG sites were replicated in ALSPAC. In NEST, methylation differences at CpG sites of the TAPBP gene were associated with BMI z-score (cg23922433 and cg17621507) and systolic BP percentile (cg06230948) in female and systolic (cg06230948) and diastolic (cg03780271) BP percentile in male offspring. Together, these findings suggest sex-specific effects, which, if causal, may explain observed sex-specific effects of maternal obesity

Clinical mastitis in cows treated with sometribove (recombinant bovine somatotropin) and its relationship to milk yield.

Effect of sometribove (methionyl bovine somatotropin) on mastitis in 15 full lactation trials (914 cows) in Europe and the US and 70 short-term studies (2697 cows) in eight countries was investigated. In full lactation studies, sometribove (500 mg/2 wk) was given for 252 d, commencing 60 d postpartum. Although herds varied considerably, incidence of clinical mastitis within a herd was similar for cows receiving control and sometribove treatments. Relative risk analyses indicated no treatment effect, and percentage of mastitis during treatment was similar for control and sometribove groups. A positive linear relationship existed between peak milk yield and mastitis incidence (percentage of cows contracting mastitis or cases per 100 cow days); sometribove treatment did not alter this relationship. Increases in mastitis related to milk yield increase from sometribove or related to genetic selection were similar. When expressed per unit of milk, mastitis incidence declined slightly as milk yield increased; this relationship was not altered by sometribove. No effect on clinical mastitis was observed in 70 commercial herds utilizing sometribove for 84 d. However, effects were significant for stage of lactation and milk yield. Overall, studies represented a wide range of research and commercial situations demonstrating that sometribove had no effect on incidence of clinical mastitis during the lactation of treatment. Furthermore, sometribove did not alter typical relationships between milk yield or herd factors and incidence of clinical mastitis

Some Uses and Potentials of Qualitative Methods in Planning

Planners use methods borrowed from many disciplines. These are usually modified and adapted to meet planner's needs to acquire and sift through many diverse information sources helpful in dealing with complex problems. The quantitative methods which planners use are well known, well established in practice, and acknowledged by most as tools of the planners' trade. In contrast to this, most planners also use qualitative methods but these are rarely explicitly acknowledged.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68912/2/10.1177_0739456X8600600110.pd

E-retailing ethics in Egypt and its effect on customer repurchase intention

The theoretical understanding of online shopping behaviour has received much attention. Less focus has been given to the formation of the ethical issues that result from online shopper interactions with e-retailers. The vast majority of earlier research on this area is conceptual in nature and limited in scope by focusing on consumers’ privacy issues. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model explaining what factors contribute to online retailing ethics and its effect on customer repurchase intention. The data were analysed using variance-based structural equation modelling, employing partial least squares regression. Findings indicate that the five factors of the online retailing ethics (security, privacy, non- deception, fulfilment/reliability, and corporate social responsibility) are strongly predictive of online consumers’ repurchase intention. The results offer important implications for e-retailers and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of e-ethics from the consumers’ perspective