Pilot study of rosiglitazone as an in vivo probe of paclitaxel exposure: Short report

To evaluate the use of rosiglitazone and the erythromycin breath test (ERMBT), as probes of CYP2C8 and CYP3A4, respectively, to explain inter-individual variability in paclitaxel exposure

Secondary Metabolites of Marine Microbes: From Natural Products Chemistry to Chemical Ecology

Marine natural products (MNPs) exhibit a wide range of pharmaceutically relevant bioactivities, including antibiotic, antiviral, anticancer, or anti-inflammatory properties. Besides marine macroorganisms such as sponges, algae, or corals, specifically marine bacteria and fungi have shown to produce novel secondary metabolites (SMs) with unique and diverse chemical structures that may hold the key for the development of novel drugs or drug leads. Apart from highlighting their potential benefit to humankind, this review is focusing on the manifold functions of SMs in the marine ecosystem. For example, potent MNPs have the ability to exile predators and competing organisms, act as attractants for mating purposes, or serve as dye for the expulsion or attraction of other organisms. A large compilation of literature on the role of MNPs in marine ecology is available, and several reviews evaluated the function of MNPs for the aforementioned topics. Therefore, we focused the second part of this review on the importance of bioactive compounds from crustose coralline algae (CCA) and their role during coral settlement, a topic that has received less attention. It has been shown that certain SMs derived from CCA and their associated bacteria are able to induce attachment and/or metamorphosis of many benthic invertebrate larvae, including globally threatened reef-building scleractinian corals. This review provides an overview on bioactivities of MNPs from marine microbes and their potential use in medicine as well as on the latest findings of the chemical ecology and settlement process of scleractinian corals and other invertebrate larvae

AIMS 2013 Biodiversity Survey of Glomar Shoal and Rankin Bank

Rankin Bank and Glomar Shoal shoals are situated 147 km North West and 93km North, respectively, of the Dampier Archipelago in North Western Australia. They are the only large, complex bathymetrical features on the outer western shelf of the West Pilbara. Rankin Bank rises steeply from 120m depth along its north eastern margin and in all other quadrants it rises above the surrounding continental shelf from approximately 80m depth. The main body of the shoal takes the form of several highly complex and rugose peaks and plateaus, reaching 20-40m below the sea surface. In comparison, the much larger Glomar Shoal riseson all sides from 80m depth and, as a whole, shallows more gradually to include a plateau region lying within 40m of the surface. At the 60m depth contour Glomar Shoal covers an area of 14699.6 hectares, which is approximately 8.5 times larger than Rankin Bank which covers an area of 1721.5 hectares.The shoals were surveyed from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) Research Vessel, RV Solander, using multibeam equipment and technicians provided by Fugro Survey Pty Ltd, during August - September 2013. For both shoals, continuous coverage bathymetry, rugosity digital elevation and terrain models were produced. These data were then used to ensure key areas of depth, aspect and slope were sampled during the subsequent biodiversity sampling cruise in September 2013. Data on biota was collected using underwater towed cameras for benthic habitat assessment and stereo baited remote underwater video stations (SBRUVS) to sample fish. In addition, seabed surface sediments were collected around each shoal, using a grab sampler, and analysed for grain size and chemical composition

Philosophy of education in a new key: exploring new ways of teaching and doing ethics in education in the 21st century

Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with the pedagogies of professional ethics, the ethical burdens of institutional injustice, and the application of ethical theory to education’s applied fields. In the responses we received it can be seen that ethical concerns in education are broad ranging, covering terrain varying from the preparation of preservice teachers, ethics in higher education, early childhood and care, educational leadership, relational and communicative ethics. Perhaps it could also be argued that this paper demonstrates Gibbon’s observation that ‘Assumptions about the particularity of this time as new and ripe with opportunity to make a difference through philosophy of education are not new and there’s much to learn from the persistence of wanting to imagine that they are’ (in Peters et al., 2020, p. 17). However, while the field of ethics is perennially concerned with human relations and pedagogical interventions to improve these, the responses collected here show that educational ethics is far from static. Educational ethics is a field that continues to develop in response to changing contexts

A quantitative comparison of towed-camera and diver-camera transects for monitoring coral reefs

Novel tools and methods for monitoring marine environments can improve efficiency but must not compromise long-term data records. Quantitative comparisons between new and existing methods are therefore required to assess their compatibility for monitoring. Monitoring of shallow water coral reefs is typically conducted using diver-based collection of benthic images along transects. Diverless systems for obtaining underwater images (e.g. towed-cameras, remotely operated vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles) are increasingly used for mapping coral reefs. Of these imaging platforms, towed-cameras offer a practical, low cost and efficient method for surveys but their utility for repeated measures in monitoring studies has not been tested. We quantitatively compare a towed-camera approach to repeated surveys of shallow water coral reef benthic assemblages on fixed transects, relative to benchmark data from diver photo-transects. Differences in the percent cover detected by the two methods was partly explained by differences in the morphology of benthic groups. The reef habitat and physical descriptors of the site—slope, depth and structural complexity—also influenced the comparability of data, with differences between the tow-camera and the diver data increasing with structural complexity and slope. Differences between the methods decreased when a greater number of images were collected per tow-camera transect. We attribute lower image quality (variable perspective, exposure and focal distance) and lower spatial accuracy and precision of the towed-camera transects as the key reasons for differences in the data from the two methods and suggest changes to the sampling design to improve the application of tow-cameras to monitoring

Montara: 2011 Shallow Reef Surveys at Ashmore, Cartier and Seringapatam Reefs

In response to the triggering of the Coral Reefs (S6) component of the PTTEP Australasia (Ashmore Cartier) Pty Ltd (PTTEPAA)/Dept. of SEWPaC Monitoring Plan for the Montara Well Release Timor Sea, PTTEP commissioned the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) to conduct surveys of shallow reef benthic habitats in the vicinity of the Montara well head platform in April 2010. Ashmore Reef and Cartier Islet were the principal emergent reefs of interest, as they were closest to the Montara Well Head platform. To provide a control location, the same sampling was conducted at Seringapatam Reef, a similar emergent reef in the same bioregion, but several hundred kilometres to the south-west and well away from modelled spill trajectories.The condition of the benthic communities at Ashmore and Cartier Reefs in the previous survey in 2010 was consistent with surveys conducted before the uncontrolled release. Although there was no evidence of recent major disturbance that could be attributable to any uncontrolled release,there was evidence of a recent coral bleaching event that was most likely caused by elevated water temperatures (Heyward et al. 2010). Notwithstanding the lack of a major impact, more subtle potential effects from hydrocarbons could not be ruled out and there remained knowledge gaps regarding coral reproduction and the recovery or otherwise of the bleached corals. Consequently, a follow up survey was commissioned by PTTEPAA in 2011 (Coral Reefs S6B), and the results of the surveys are presented here.The most recent 2011 survey enabled a repeated assessment of the shallow reef benthos to ascertain the ongoing state of the coral communities. In addition, an extended and more diverse selection of sampling was undertaken to see if processes of ongoing coral population renewal via sexual reproduction and recruitment were occurring. The 2011 surveys were broader in scope than the 2010 assessment, including comprehensive assessment of the fish communities associated withthe benthic sites, as well as a re-sampling of reef sediments to follow up on the status of hydrocarbon detections noted in the 2010 report