Mesophotic coral reef ecosystems in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area

This report reviews the most recent science regarding the potential distribution of mesophotic coral reef ecosystems (MCEs) throughout the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, and discusses the potential importance of MCEs as refugia for corals and other sessile benthic megafauna from disturbance and as potential sources of coral larvae to disturbed shallow-water coral reefs

Measuring the haemodynamic responses elicited in the visual cortex from various spatial and temporal frequencies using NIRS

Previous research has found the optimum spatial and temporal frequency of a stimulus can elicit peak activation in the visual cortex. In this study eight participants looked at bullseye gratings with low and high spatial frequencies (0.5 & 3 c/deg) at varying temporal frequencies (1, 4, 8 & 30Hz). Their haemoglobin response in the visual cortex was recorded using Near Infra-red Spectroscopy (NIRS). Insignificant results were found in all measures, including oxygenated haemoglobin which reported F (1, 8, 5.63) = .75, p<.44. Trigonometric regression did illustrate increased visual activation when the bullseye grating was presented. It appears different frequencies can cause different haemodynamic response, but a larger sample and the elimination of disadvantages in NIRS is required to obtain significance

Deep Herschel view of obscured star formation in the Bullet cluster

We use deep, five band (100–500 μm) data from the Herschel Lensing Survey (HLS) to fully constrain the obscured star formation rate, SFR_(FIR), of galaxies in the Bullet cluster (z = 0.296), and a smaller background system (z = 0.35) in the same field. Herschel detects 23 Bullet cluster members with a total SFRFIR = 144±14 M_☉ yr^(-1). On average, the background system contains brighter far-infrared (FIR) galaxies, with ~50% higher SFRFIR (21 galaxies; 207 ± 9 M_☉ yr^(-1)). SFRs extrapolated from 24 μm flux via recent templates (SFR_(24 µm)) agree well with SFRFIR for ~60% of the cluster galaxies. In the remaining ~40%, SFR24 µm underestimates SFR_(FIR) due to a significant excess in observed S_(100)/S_(24) (rest frame S_(75)/S_(18)) compared to templates of the same FIR luminosity

Automated inspection system for NDT of steel plates

The aim of the research project is to automate NDT data acquisition and analysis on large steel plates with an ultrasonic inspection technique that is implemented with robotics instrumentation. The project researches NDT sensor deployment, ultrasonic data acquisition and analysis and intelligent flaw detection. A robotic system has been developed for the inspection of internal imperfections in flat steel plates and produces a map of defective areas. It is a magnetic vehicle with a self-navigating system that carries 16 transducers for ultrasonic testing. The software that has been developed controls the scan trajectory of the vehicle and locates and plots position of the ultrasonic sensors and the presence of any defects at these positions. Internal imperfections in the steel plate are detected by monitoring the backwall echo or the echo associated with an imperfection during the scanning. The system has easy mobility to carry out inspection from site to site and a display and image processing system to analyse and show results of the ultrasonic inspection

Saltkraft : ei teoretisk innføring og utgreiing av eit minikraftverk

Målet med denne rapporten er å gje ei teoretisk innføring i trykkretardert osmose og reversert elektrodialyse, som er to av dei mest brukte teknologiane bak saltkraft. Energipotensialet er stort, saltkraft kan utvinnas i heile verda der ferskvatn frå elver renn ut i salt hav. Krafta frå ei elv kan samanliknas med eit fossefall på over 100 meter. Vi nyttar og teorien til å greie ut eit minikraftverk i Storelva i Vevring, Sogn og Fjordane. Utgreiinga viser at det er eit betydeleg effektpotensiale, med ein teoretisk årsproduksjon på i underkant av 1 GWh frå ei elv med nytteleg vassføring på 0,14 m3/s

Variability in the functional composition of coral reef fish communities on submerged and emergent reefs in the central Great Barrier Reef, Australia

On coral reefs, depth and gradients related to depth (e.g. light and wave exposure) influence the composition of fish communities. However, most studies focus only on emergent reefs that break the sea surface in shallow waters (<10 m). On the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), submerged reefs (reefs that do not break the sea surface) occupy an area equivalent to all emergent reefs. However, submerged reefs have received comparatively little research attention, and fish communities associated with submerged reefs remain poorly quantified. Here, we quantify fish assemblages at each of three depths (10, 20 and 30 m) on eight submerged reefs (four mid-shelf and four outer-shelf) and two nearby emergent reefs in the central GBR where reef habitat extends from 0-~25 m depth. We examine how total fish abundance, the abundance of 13 functional groups, and the functional composition of fish communities varies among depths, reef types (submerged versus emergent reefs), and shelf position (mid-shelf versus outer-shelf). Overall fish abundance decreased sevenfold with depth, but declined less steeply (twofold) on outer-shelf submerged reefs than on both mid-shelf submerged reefs and emergent reefs. The functional composition of the fish assemblage also varied significantly among depths and reef types. Turnover in the functional composition of the fish community was also steeper on the mid-shelf, suggesting that shallow-affiliated groups extend further in deeper water on the outer-shelf. Ten of the 13 functional groups were more strongly associated with the shallowest depths (the upper reef slope of emergent reefs or the 'crests' of submerged reefs), two groups (soft coral/sponge feeders and mesopredators) were more abundant at the deepest sites. Our results confirm that submerged reefs in the central GBR support a wide range of coral reef fishes, and are an important component of the GBR ecosystem

Effect of air turbulence on gas transport in soil; comparison of approaches

Geophysical Research Abstracts (GRA) is the conference series publishing the abstracts accepted for the General Assemblies of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). It links the annual conference programmes listing programme groups, included sessions, and their contributions. The abstracts underwent an access review by the session conveners.Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool Universit

The bright-end galaxy candidates at z ~ 9 from 79 independent HST fields

We present a full data analysis of the pure-parallel Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging observations in the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Survey (BoRG[z9]) in Cycle 22. The medium-deep exposures with five HST/WFC3IR+UVIS filter bands from 79 independent sightlines (~370 arcmin^2) provide the least biased determination of number density for z>9 bright galaxies against cosmic variance. After a strict two-step selection for candidate galaxies, including dropout color and photometric redshift analyses, and revision of previous BoRG candidates, we identify one source at z~10 and two sources at z~9. The z~10 candidate shows evidence of line-of-sight lens magnification (mu~1.5), yet it appears surprisingly luminous (MUV ~ -22.6\pm0.3 mag), making it one of the brightest candidates at z > 8 known (~ 0.3 mag brighter than the z = 8.68 galaxy EGSY8p7, spectroscopically confirmed by Zitrin and collaborators). For z ~ 9 candidates, we include previous data points at fainter magnitudes and find that the data are well fitted by a Schechter luminosity function with alpha ~ -2.1, MUV ~ -21.5 mag, and log phi ~ -4.5 Mpc^-3mag^-1, for the first time without fixing any parameters. The inferred cosmic star formation rate density is consistent with unaccelerated evolution from lower redshift.Comment: 18pages, 7figures, 6tables. accepted to the Astrophysical Journa

MetaNetX/MNXref - reconciliation of metabolites and biochemical reactions to bring together genome-scale metabolic networks.

MetaNetX is a repository of genome-scale metabolic networks (GSMNs) and biochemical pathways from a number of major resources imported into a common namespace of chemical compounds, reactions, cellular compartments-namely MNXref-and proteins. The MetaNetX.org website (http://www.metanetx.org/) provides access to these integrated data as well as a variety of tools that allow users to import their own GSMNs, map them to the MNXref reconciliation, and manipulate, compare, analyze, simulate (using flux balance analysis) and export the resulting GSMNs. MNXref and MetaNetX are regularly updated and freely available