Research priorities for the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the World Heritage Area 2001

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, comprising a huge complex of approximately 2900 reefs, 900 islands and other ecosystems (including estuaries, seagrass beds, and soft bottom communities). The GBR supports a high degree of biological diversity due to the variety of ecosystems present and the huge size of the area (>343 500km2). Due to its national and international importance, the Great Barrier Reef is also the world’s largest Marine Park and World Heritage Area

The Fate of Oil in the Water Column Following Experimental Oil Spills in the Arctic Marine Nearshore

Petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations in the water column were monitored after a release of crude oil onto the water surface and a subsurface release of chemically dispersed oil. During the surface release, petroleum hydrocarbons did not disperse into the water column deeper than 1 m. The highest concentrations observed under the slick were less than 2 mg/l. The chemically dispersed oil released resulted in concentrations over 50 mg/l in the Bay 9 study area for 12 hours. Estimated exposures of the benthic communities to oil in the three experimental bays were 3 mg/l/h, 30 mg/l/h, and 300 mg/l/h respectively. The highest exposures were to oil retaining many of its more toxic components.Key words: dispersant, oil, fluorometry, gas chromatography, oil spillMots clés: agent de dispersion, fluorométrie, chromatographie en phase gazeuse, déversement de pétrol

Feasibility study on infrared electro-thermal NDE of stainless steel

Electro-thermal examination, a branch of thermal testing (TT), is a promising method being developed for NDE of stainless steel welds. This report describes the first phase of development; i.e., preliminary demonstration and laboratory evaluation of the method's sensitivity to notches in Type 304 stainless steel plate specimens. It also includes a description of the basic principles, together with a description of the hardware and experimental results showing that electrical discharge machined notches down to 0.16 cm (0.06 in.) long x 0.08 cm (0.03 in.) deep were detected. A qualitative technique for interpreting the test results to determine whether defects are at the surface or deeper within the material is demonstrated. (auth

Topological Defects on Fluctuating Surfaces: General Properties and the Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition

We investigate the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition for hexatic order on a free fluctuating membrane and derive both a Coulomb gas and a sine-Gordon Hamiltonian to describe it. The Coulomb-gas Hamiltonian includes charge densities arising from disclinations and from Gaussian curvature. There is an interaction coupling the difference between these two densities, whose strength is determined by the hexatic rigidity, and an interaction coupling Gaussian curvature densities arising from the Liouville Hamiltonian resulting from the imposition of a covariant cutoff. In the sine-Gordon Hamiltonian, there is a linear coupling between a scalar field and the Gaussian curvature. We discuss gauge-invariant correlation function for hexatic order and the dielectric constant of the Coulomb gas. We also derive renormalization group recursion relations that predict a transition with decreasing bending rigidity $\kappa$.Comment: REVTEX, 45 pages with 11 postscript figures compressed using uufiles. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

An overview of the corrective action management unit and temporary unit regulations

In February 1993, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated the corrective action management unit (CAMU) and temporary unit (TU) regulations as 40 CFR Part 264, Subpart S. These regulations are intended to foster the selection of protective and cost-effective remedies for the restoration of sites contaminated by hazardous substances, hazardous wastes, and hazardous waste constituents by removing certain regulatory impediments to implementing those remedies, most notably those of the land disposal restrictions (LDRs). This paper provides a brief overview of the CAMU and TU regulations

Comparative Fate of Chemically Dispersed and Beached Crude Oil in Subtidal Sediments of the Arctic Nearshore

A three-year investigation was conducted to examine the incorporation of petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC) into subtidal sediments following experimental releases of oil during the Baffin Island Oil Spill (BIOS) Project experiments. The concentrations of PHC were determined by synchronous scanning UV/Fluorescence spectroscopy, while the composition of residual saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons was determined by gas chromatography and gas chromatographic mass spectrometry. ... The eroding oil from the Bay 11 beach was compositionally quite heterogeneous, with weathered, biodegraded oil, as well as relatively unweathered oil, found on the beach and in the offshore sediments. Biodegradation of oil appeared to be restricted to the beached oil, with no significant degradation apparently occurring subtidally. After two years, the offshore oil residues still contained low molecular weight alkanes as well as alkylated naphthalenes. The situation in Bay 9, where chemically dispersed oil was discharged near the bottom, was quite different. In spite of a large water column exposure, the bottom sediments never contained more than 10 micro g/g of oil. Of this amount of oil, a significant fraction (20%) of the PHC was initially associated with the surface flocculent layer. Levels of oil in the Bay 9 sediments were on the order of 1-3 micro g/g one year after the release. Sediment PHC levels in the other less exposed bays (Bays 10 and 7) never exceeded 3 micro g/g.Key words: BIOS, experimental oil spill, petroleum hydrocarbons, arctic sediments, oil pollutionMots clés: BIOS, déversement de pétrole expérimental, hydrocarbures pétroliers, sédiments arctiques, pollution par le pétrol

Widespread mitochondrial depletion via mitophagy does not compromise necroptosis

Programmed necrosis (or necroptosis) is a form of cell death triggered by the activation of receptor interacting protein kinase-3 (RIPK3). Several reports have implicated mitochondria and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation as effectors of RIPK3-dependent cell death. Here, we directly test this idea by employing a method for the specific removal of mitochondria via mitophagy. Mitochondria-deficient cells were resistant to the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis, but efficiently died via tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced, RIPK3-dependent programmed necrosis or as a result of direct oligomerization of RIPK3. Although the ROS scavenger butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) delayed TNF-induced necroptosis, it had no effect on necroptosis induced by RIPK3 oligomerization. Furthermore, although TNF-induced ROS production was dependent on mitochondria, the inhibition of TNF-induced necroptosis by BHA was observed in mitochondria-depleted cells. Our data indicate that mitochondrial ROS production accompanies, but does not cause, RIPK3-dependent necroptotic cell death

Cosmic ray electrons and positrons from discrete stochastic sources

The distances that galactic cosmic ray electrons and positrons can travel are severely limited by energy losses to at most a few kiloparsec, thereby rendering the local spectrum very sensitive to the exact distribution of sources in our galactic neighbourhood. However, due to our ignorance of the exact source distribution, we can only predict the spectrum stochastically. We argue that even in the case of a large number of sources the central limit theorem is not applicable, but that the standard deviation for the flux from a random source is divergent due to a long power law tail of the probability density. Instead, we compute the expectation value and characterise the scatter around it by quantiles of the probability density using a generalised central limit theorem in a fully analytical way. The uncertainty band is asymmetric about the expectation value and can become quite large for TeV energies. In particular, the predicted local spectrum is marginally consistent with the measurements by Fermi-LAT and HESS even without imposing spectral breaks or cut-offs at source. We conclude that this uncertainty has to be properly accounted for when predicting electron fluxes above a few hundred GeV from astrophysical sources.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; references and clarifying comment added; to appear in JCA

Homological Type of Geometric Transitions

The present paper gives an account and quantifies the change in topology induced by small and type II geometric transitions, by introducing the notion of the \emph{homological type} of a geometric transition. The obtained results agree with, and go further than, most results and estimates, given to date by several authors, both in mathematical and physical literature.Comment: 36 pages. Minor changes: A reference and a related comment in Remark 3.2 were added. This is the final version accepted for publication in the journal Geometriae Dedicat