Scientific divers quantify first known outbreaks of cold-water coral disease

Coral diseases are widely reported in the tropics but the first incidence of cold-water coral disease was not noted until 2002 when divers recorded an outbreak at 10-28 m depth off Lundy in a NE Atlantic marine protected area. The seafan Eunicella verrucosa exhibited coenchyme necrosis and subsequent diving surveys of \u3e600 colonies at 13 sites since revealed that disease outbreaks were widespread in SW England to depths of 50 m from 2003-2008, possibly caused by infection by Vibrio bacteria at high temperatures

Collision Integrals for the Exponential Attractive Potential

Numerical integration calculation of collision integrals for exponential attractive potential of gase

Automatic calculation of the transport collision integrals with tables for the morse potential

Computer program for calculation of transport collision integrals with tables for Morse potentia

"It's a safe space": Self-harm self-help groups

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative analysis of the role of self-harm self-help groups from the perspective of group members. Design / methodology / approach: A qualitative case study approach guided the research, which involved working with two self-harm self-help groups and all regularly attending members. Findings: A thematic approach to the analysis of the findings indicates that self-harm self-help groups can provide a safe, non-judgemental space where those who self-harm can meet, listen and talk to others who share similar experiences for reciprocal peer support. Offering a different approach to that experienced in statutory services the groups reduced members’ isolation and offered opportunities for learning and findings ways to lessen and better manage their self-harm. Research limitations / implications: This was a small-scale qualitative study, hence it is not possible to generalise the findings to all self-harm self-help groups. Practical implications: The value of peers supporting one another, as a means of aiding recovery and improving well-being, has gained credence in recent years, but remains limited for those who self-harm. The findings from this research highlight the value of self-help groups in providing opportunities for peer support and the facilitative role practitioners can play in the development of self-harm self-help groups. Originality / value: Self-harm self-help groups remain an underexplored area, despite such groups being identified as a valuable source of support by its members. This research provides empirical evidence, at an individual and group level, into the unique role of self-harm self-help groups

Inverse monoids and immersions of 2-complexes

It is well known that under mild conditions on a connected topological space $\mathcal X$, connected covers of $\mathcal X$ may be classified via conjugacy classes of subgroups of the fundamental group of $\mathcal X$. In this paper, we extend these results to the study of immersions into 2-dimensional CW-complexes. An immersion $f : {\mathcal D} \rightarrow \mathcal C$ between CW-complexes is a cellular map such that each point $y \in {\mathcal D}$ has a neighborhood $U$ that is mapped homeomorphically onto $f(U)$ by $f$. In order to classify immersions into a 2-dimensional CW-complex $\mathcal C$, we need to replace the fundamental group of $\mathcal C$ by an appropriate inverse monoid. We show how conjugacy classes of the closed inverse submonoids of this inverse monoid may be used to classify connected immersions into the complex

Sensible heat loss from Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) feeding in winter: small calves are not at a thermal disadvantage compared with adult cows

Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) are large (\u3e200 kg adult body mass) mammalian herbivores that overwinter in the polar regions. Calves are around one-third the body mass of mature females and may be expected to suffer greater thermal stresses in winter compared with adults because the ratio of surface area to volume (SA : vol) is much greater for calves than for adults. We found that during feeding bouts, when animals are fully exposed to environmental conditions, calves did lose sensible (dry) heat more readily than adults (W m(-2)) in still air conditions. However, calves and cows lost less than 2%-6% of their estimated daily digestible energy intake as conductive, convective, and radiant heat losses accumulated during feeding bouts. More important, calves did not lose relatively more heat than larger adults in terms of sensible losses as part of their daily energy intake. Coat surface temperatures were only 2 degrees-5 degrees C above ambient even when air temperature fell to -40 degrees C. Body temperatures recorded deep within the ear canal near the tympanum fluctuated in both cows and calves. Muskoxen combine peripheral heterothermy and an exceptional winter coat to minimize sensible heat loss in winter. These mechanisms appear to have circumvented some of the thermal problems normally associated with a high SA : vol ratio in calves, which reflects the strong selection to conserve energy in winter

Cross-Identification of Stars with Unknown Proper Motions

The cross-identification of sources in separate catalogs is one of the most basic tasks in observational astronomy. It is, however, surprisingly difficult and generally ill-defined. Recently Budav\'ari & Szalay (2008) formulated the problem in the realm of probability theory, and laid down the statistical foundations of an extensible methodology. In this paper, we apply their Bayesian approach to stars that, we know, can move measurably on the sky, with detectable proper motion, and show how to associate their observations. We study models on a sample of stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which allow for an unknown proper motion per object, and demonstrate the improvements over the analytic static model. Our models and conclusions are directly applicable to upcoming surveys such as PanSTARRS, the Dark Energy Survey, Sky Mapper, and the LSST, whose data sets will contain hundreds of millions of stars observed multiple times over several years.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Digestive plasticity of the small intestine and the fermentative hindgut in a marsupial herbivore, the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii)

We investigated the effects of a ground, pelleted diet versus natural forage on the gross morphology of the gastrointestinal tract of a medium- sized (5 - 7 kg body mass) macropodid marsupial, the tammar wallaby ( Macropus eugenii). The empty wet mass ( g) of the small intestine of tammar wallabies maintained on a pelleted diet for 6 weeks was 22% greater than that of animals maintained on natural forage, once body mass was taken into account by ANCOVA. Similarly, the body-mass-adjusted length of the tammar wallaby caecum and proximal colon combined was 25% longer in animals maintained on the pelleted diet compared with those maintained on forage. Our data suggest that food particle size may be directly involved in controlling the size of the post-gastric alimentary tract in tammar wallabies, and thus in their diet choice and nutritional ecology. Notably, this is the first study that links phenotypic plasticity of the gut directly to diet in a marsupial and we conclude that the tammar wallaby is an excellent model for exploring the causes and consequences of digestive plasticity in macropodid marsupials