Coral Identification Guide NAFO Area

Accurate reporting of benthic corals is increasingly important for mapping distributions and for the continued development of sustainable fisheries under the ecosystem approach. This coral identification guide is intended to help those on-board commercial and research fishing vessels to identify and record the various species of coral likely to be commonly encountered in fishing trawls. The guide is clear and simple to use, and will provide names to the majority of these beautiful bottomdwelling animals. The photographs are typically of caught specimens taken on the deck, as this gives the best picture of what is actually seen. Sadly, we rarely personally see corals in their natural habitat, except by looking at films and photos taken by deep underwater cameras

Student Satisfaction and Performance in an Online Teacher Certification Program

The article presents a study which demonstrates the effectiveness of an online post baccalaureate teacher certification program developed by a Wisconsin university. The case method approach employing multiple methods and multiple data sources were used to investigate the degree to which pre-service teachers were prepared to teach. It was concluded that the study supports online delivery as an effective means of teacher preparation, but it was limited in the number of students followed into their first year of teaching

Detecting the influence of initial pioneers on succession at deep-sea vents

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 7 (2012): e50015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050015.Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are subject to major disturbances that alter the physical and chemical environment and eradicate the resident faunal communities. Vent fields are isolated by uninhabitable deep seafloor, so recolonization via dispersal of planktonic larvae is critical for persistence of populations. We monitored colonization near 9°50′N on the East Pacific Rise following a catastrophic eruption in order to address questions of the relative contributions of pioneer colonists and environmental change to variation in species composition, and the role of pioneers at the disturbed site in altering community structure elsewhere in the region. Pioneer colonists included two gastropod species: Ctenopelta porifera, which was new to the vent field, and Lepetodrilus tevnianus, which had been rare before the eruption but persisted in high abundance afterward, delaying and possibly out-competing the ubiquitous pre-eruption congener L. elevatus. A decrease in abundance of C. porifera over time, and the arrival of later species, corresponded to a decrease in vent fluid flow and in the sulfide to temperature ratio. For some species these successional changes were likely due to habitat requirements, but other species persisted (L. tevnianus) or arrived (L. elevatus) in patterns unrelated to their habitat preferences. After two years, disturbed communities had started to resemble pre-eruption ones, but were lower in diversity. When compared to a prior (1991) eruption, the succession of foundation species (tubeworms and mussels) appeared to be delayed, even though habitat chemistry became similar to the pre-eruption state more quickly. Surprisingly, a nearby community that had not been disturbed by the eruption was invaded by the pioneers, possibly after they became established in the disturbed vents. These results indicate that the post-eruption arrival of species from remote locales had a strong and persistent effect on communities at both disturbed and undisturbed vents.The authors received funding from National Science Foundation grant OCE-0424953, WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute, WHOI Summer Student Fellow program, Woods Hole Partnership in Education Program, IFREMER and CNRS, Fondation TOTAL Chair Extreme Marine Environment, Biodiversity and Global change

Comparative proteomic analysis on fruit ripening processes in two varieties of tropical mango (Mangifera indica)

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an economically important fruit. However, the marketability of mango is affected by the perishable nature and short shelf-life of the fruit. Therefore, a better understanding of the mango ripening process is of great importance towards extending its postharvest shelf life. Proteomics is a powerful tool that can be used to elucidate the complex ripening process at the cellular and molecular levels. This study utilized 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2D-GE) coupled with MALDI-TOF/TOF to identify differentially abundant proteins during the ripening process of the two varieties of tropical mango, Mangifera indica cv. ‘Chokanan’ and Mangifera indica cv ‘Golden Phoenix’. The comparative analysis between the ripe and unripe stages of mango fruit mesocarp revealed that the differentially abundant proteins identified could be grouped into the three categories namely, ethylene synthesis and aromatic volatiles, cell wall degradation and stress-response proteins. There was an additional category for differential proteins identified from the ‘Chokanan’ variety namely, energy and carbohydrate metabolism. However, of all the differential proteins identified, only methionine gamma-lyase was found in both ‘Chokanan’ and ‘Golden Phoenix’ varieties. Six differential proteins were selected from each variety for validation by analysing their respective transcript expression using reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). The results revealed that two genes namely, glutathione S-transferase (GST) and alpha-1,4 glucan phosphorylase (AGP) were found to express in concordant with protein abundant. The findings will provide an insight into the fruit ripening process of different varieties of mango fruits, which is important for postharvest management

A prototype data archive for the PIER 'thermal distribution systems in commercial buildings' project

A prototype archive for a selection of building energy data on thermal distribution systems in commercial buildings was developed and pilot tested. While the pilot demonstrated the successful development of the data archive prototype, several questions remain about the usefulness of such an archive. Specifically, questions on the audience, frequency of use, maintenance, and updating of the archive would need to be addressed before this prototype is taken to the next level

Ultra-high resolution snapshots of three multi-decadal periods in an Antarctic ice core

We offer the first sub-seasonal view of glacial age archives from the Siple Dome-A (SDMA) ice core using the ultra-high resolution capabilities of a newly developed laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS; 121 μm sampling resolution) system capable of conducting multi-element glaciochemical analysis. Our ultra-high resolution data demonstrates that: (1) the SDMA ice core record can be annually dated based on seasonality in chemical inputs at a depth not previously possible using previous glaciochemical sampling methods, (2) winter accumulation at the SD site was greater than summer accumulation during the three late glacial periods selected (∼15.3, 17.3, 21.4 Ka ago) in this study and (3) resulting annual layer thicknesses results show greater variability than the current SD ice core depth/age model (Brook and others, 2005), possibly due to depositional effects such as wind scouring and/or decadal variability in snow accumulation that is not captured by the resolution of the current depth/age model

Radiation-induced lung toxicity in mice irradiated in a strong magnetic field.

Strong magnetic fields affect radiation dose deposition in MRI-guided radiation therapy systems, particularly at interfaces between tissues of differing densities such as those in the thorax. In this study, we evaluated the impact of a 1.5 T magnetic field on radiation-induced lung damage in C57L/J mice. We irradiated 140 mice to the whole thorax with parallel-opposed Co-60 beams to doses of 0, 9.0, 10.0, 10.5, 11.0, 12.0, or 13.0 Gy (20 mice per dose group). Ten mice per dose group were irradiated while a 1.5 T magnetic field was applied transverse to the radiation beam and ten mice were irradiated with the magnetic field set to 0 T. We compared survival and noninvasive assays of radiation-induced lung damage, namely respiratory rate and metrics derived from thoracic cone-beam CTs, between the two sets of mice. We report two main results. First, the presence of a transverse 1.5 T field during irradiation had no impact on survival of C57L/J mice. Second, there was a small but statistically significant effect on noninvasive assays of radiation-induced lung damage. These results provide critical safety data for the clinical introduction of MRI-guided radiation therapy systems