Effects of organic enrichment on macrofauna community structure: an experimental approach

The determination of the resilience of benthic assemblages is a capital issue for the off-shore aquaculture industry in its attempts to minimize environmental disturbances. Experimental studies are an important tool for the establishment of thresholds for macrofaunal assemblages inhabiting sandy seabeds. An experiment was conducted with three treatments (Control, 1x and 3x),in which organic load (fish pellets) was added (1x (10 g of fish pellets) and 3x (30 g)). A reduction in abundance of individuals and species richness was found as between the control and organic-enriched treatments. Significant changes in assemblage structure were also found, mainly due to the decrease of the sensitive tanaid Apseudes talpa in organically-enriched treatments. AMBI and M-AMBI indices were calculated and a decrease of ecological status was observed in treatment 3x

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

Morphology of Triloculina rotunda d’Orbigny: relationship with environmental condition

Specimens of Triloculina rotunda d’Orbigny, collected in two brackish Mediterranean lagoons in Italy (S. Gilla Lagoon, Sardinia and Orbetello Lagoon, Tuscany) are analysed. Various groups of specimens were separated on the basis of external morphological features. Apertural characters and tooth shape varied in relation to environmental conditions. Megalospheric forms were dominant in both populations. Weakly calcified test walls suggest that reproduction occurs in juvenile stages

Levels of Mercury and Polychlorobiphenyls in Blufin Tuna the Western Mediterranean Sea: A Food Safety Issue?

In this paper, the presence and amount of mercury and polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs) were determined in 23 blue- fin tuna samples collected in the spring of 2012 in Porto Scuso (South West Sardinia, Italy) and Villa Putzu (South East Sardinia, Italy) in order to assess the current levels of these two contaminants in fish muscle and the consequent risk to humans consuming said fish. Values of polychlorobiphenyls in bluefin tuna muscle vary be- tween 0.155 and 1.403 mg/kg f.w.; the average of PCBs in tuna muscle is 0.732 mg/kg f.w. With regard to PCBs the presence of more elevated concentrations is confirmed in larger fish. The results regarding mercury in mus- cle show an average of 0.660 mg/kg f.w. and mercury values vary between 0.140 f.w. and 2.211 mg/kg f.w.; for mercury as well, the highest concentrations were found in the largest bluefin tuna. Six samples, 26% of total, contained more than 1 mg/kg f.w., which is the maximum level set by the European Commission (EC, Regulation n. 1881/2006) for this species. Mercury, in particular methylmercury, poses a risk to public health, therefore, taking into account the important nutritional contribution that tuna fish makes to the diet, it is advisable that women of childbearing age, pregnant and breastfeeding women as well as young children strictly limit their consumption of tuna from this area of the Mediterranean