Reef recollections: an oral history of the Great Barrier Reef

As part of the social research program at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, a need was identified to gather information about the state of the Great Barrier Reef in the past 50 years. While scientific data has been collected since the inception of the Authority in the 1970s and by the Australian Institute of Marine Science at around the same time, scientific data is less available for earlier decades. Social information about how communities interacted and engaged with the Great Barrier Reef over time is rare. Of particular interest is how the environment and community have changed over time. While scientific knowledge provides valuable insights into the present condition and causes of environmental change and the processes by which it occurs, it often lacks a historical dimension

Facial eczema in West Australian sheep

SINCE 1894 when the disease was first described in New Zealand, the term facial eczema has been used to describe a specific photosensitization of sheep in that country

Internal parasites of cattle

Worm parasites can have a most serious effect on cattle, even causing deaths. This article describes the main parasites of cattle, treatment with modern anthelmintic drugs and the best means of preventing and controlling worm outbreaks

Ovine vibriosis : a new cause of sheep infertility

Vibrionic abortion of sheep has caused heavy losses in a number of wheatbelt flocks. In several flocks up to 50 per cent, of the ewes aborted as a result of this newly reported disease. This article gives the history of the disease in this State, and describes the symptoms for the benefit of other farmers whose flocks may be affected. Ewes become immune after the first attack

Determination of local material properties of OSB sample by coupling advanced imaging techniques and morphology-based FEM simulation

This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by Walter de Gruyter & Co. and can be found at: http://www.degruyter.com/.The goal was to determine local mechanical properties inside of oriented strand board (OSB) based on a realistic morphology-based finite element (FE) model and data acquired from a physical test performed on the same material. The spatial information and local grayscale intensity from CT-scans obtained from small OSB sample was transformed into a 2D regular morphology-based FE mesh with corresponding material properties. The model was then used to simulate the actual compression test performed on the specimen using simplified boundary conditions. The simulated strain fields from the model were compared with the actual strain field measured on the specimen surface during the compression test by means of a full-field optical method, named digital image correlation (DIC). Finally, the original set of material properties was adjusted by an iterative procedure to minimize the difference between the simulated and the measured strain data. The results show that the developed procedure is useful to find local material properties as well as for morphological modeling without the need of segmentation of the image data. The achieved results serve as a prerequisite for full 3D analyses of the complex materials

Benthic phosphorus cycling within the Eurasian marginal sea ice zone

The Arctic Ocean region is currently undergoing dramatic changes, which will likely alter the nutrient cycles that underpin Arctic marine ecosystems. Phosphate is a key limiting nutrient for marine life but gaps in our understanding of the Arctic phosphorus (P) cycle persist. In this study, we investigate the benthic burial and recycling of phosphorus using sediments and pore waters from the Eurasian Arctic margin, including the Barents Sea slope and the Yermak Plateau. Our results highlight that P is generally lost from sediments with depth during organic matter respiration. On the Yermak Plateau, remobilization of P results in a diffusive flux of P to the seafloor of between 96 and 261 µmol m−2 yr−1. On the Barents Sea slope, diffusive fluxes of P are much larger (1736–2449 µmol m−2 yr−1), but these fluxes are into near-surface sediments rather than to the bottom waters. The difference in cycling on the Barents Sea slope is controlled by higher fluxes of fresh organic matter and active iron cycling. As changes in primary productivity, ocean circulation and glacial melt continue, benthic P cycling is likely to be altered with implications for P imported into the Arctic Ocean Basin