The European flagship of marine sciences for a sustainable future

Marine Genomics Europe brings genomics into marine biology. It will strengthen and integrate the community of marine biologists forstructuring the European Research Area (ERA). Marine scientists in Europe summarize their successes with genome technologies in the marine sciences and make a plea for a concerted international effort to raise greater public education for support

Beam shaping to control of weldpool size in width and depth

AbstractThe introduction of high power single mode fiber lasers has given deeper and narrower laser welds than seen previously. In some cases the weld becomes too narrow and must be expanded to fit the geometrical shape of a given weld task. It was suggested that instead of using only one beam, the beam was split into multiple beams placed in a pre-specified pattern. In this way the dimensions of the weld pool could be controlled. This gave the ability to control the final weld face width and penetrationdepth independently of each other with minimum heat input.Practical implementation of splitting a beam into a beam pattern with a diffractive optical element (DOE) is presented with results on splitting a beam from a single mode fiber laser into either three or seven individual beams on a row. Basic design rules for controlling the weld pool dimensions are developed. Results show that it is possible to control weldpool in size

Species co-occurrences in ectoparasite infracommunities: Accounting for confounding factors associated with space, time, and host community composition

1. We explored patterns of co-occurrence of ectoparasite species on individual hosts from Central Europe (Slovakia) and South America (Argentina) within and between higher taxa while controlling for confounding factors associated with variation between host individuals and host species, as well as spatial and temporal variation. We used a recently developed statistical approach, the hierarchical modelling of species communities. 2. Although the probability of pairwise associations of the majority of species in both regions did not differ from random, all significant species associations in Slovakia were positive, whereas the only three significant species associations in Argentina were negative. On average, associations between ectoparasite species belonging to different higher taxa were positive in Slovakia and negative in Argentina. 3. At the host species level, both positive and negative associations between species were detected in all higher taxa. This was also true for ectoparasite co-occurrences in the same site, habitat, or year; although the number of co-occurring species pairs with high posterior probability was much greater in Slovakia than in Argentina. 4. We conclude that consideration of species co-occurrences across the entire multi-host assemblage and control for confounding spatial and temporal factors provided important insights into parasite community structure.Fil: Krasnov, Boris R.. Ben Gurion University of the Negev; IsraelFil: Stanko, Michal. Slovak Academy of Sciences. Institute of Parasitology and Institute of Zoology; EslovaquiaFil: Lareschi, Marcela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores; ArgentinaFil: Khokhlova, Irina S.. Ben Gurion University of the Negev; Israe