Metacercariae of the micropha\lid trematode Microphallus paragrapsi Smith 1983 were found in r.he nervous system of the smooth pebble crab Philyra laevis (Bell 1855). Sporocysts of M. paragrapsi were found in the hepatopancreas of the intertidal gastropod Assiminea brazieri (Tenison Woods 1876). Under laboratory conditions, cercariae were found to emerge from the snail host and invade the inter...

© 2011. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) recently released the outcome of the South Africa–Norway bio-safety cooperation project ‘Monitoring the environmental impacts of GM maize in South Africa’. This project studied possible impacts of commercial geneticall...

We apply a logistic smooth transition market model (LSTM) to a sample of returns on Australian industry portfolios to investigate whether bull and bear market betas differ. Unlike other studies, our LSTM model allows for smooth transition between bull and bear states and allows the data to determine the threshold value. The estimated value of the smoothness parameter was very large for all indu...

The origins of flora and fauna that are only found in Ireland and Iberia, but which are absent from intervening countries, is one of the enduring questions of biogeography. As Southern French, Iberian and Irish populations of the land snail Cepaea nemoralis sometimes have a similar shell character, we used mitochondrial phylogenies to begin to understand if there is a shared "Lusitanian" histor...

This paper reveals a study on air pollution process over North China, applying remote sensing technology, using satellite observation and in situ measurements during the twenty-first Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, which was held in Beijing between 6 and 12 November when the clear weather was called “APEC-Blue”. In the meantime, pollutants concentrations including PM2.5 and PM...

The surface core-level shifts (SCLS) on the (0001) surface of beryllium were used to study the phase diagram of the hydrogen-induced reconstructions on this surface. Two different top-layer reconstruction phases are formed upon atomic hydrogen adsorption below and above room temperature, respectively. We are able to assign a characteristic core-level spectrum to an individual reconstruction pha...

The TAROT telescopes (Télescopes à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires) are two robotic observatories designed to observe the prompt optical emission counterpart and the early afterglow of gamma ray bursts (GRBs). We present data acquired between 2001 and 2008 and discuss the properties of the optical emission of GRBs, noting various interesting results. The optical emission observed dur...

In this letter we discuss the flux and the behavior of the bright optical flare emission detected by the 25 cm TAROT robotic telescope during the prompt high-energy emission and the early afterglow. We combine our data with simultaneous observations performed in X-rays and we analyze the broad-band spectrum. These observations lead us to emphasize the similarity of GRB 050904 with GRB 990123, a...

Ligia isopods are conspicuous inhabitants of rocky intertidal habitats exhibiting several biological traits that severely limit their dispersal potential. Their presence in patchy habitats and low vagility may lead to long term isolation, allopatric isolation and possible cryptic speciation. Indeed, various species of Ligia have been suggested to represent instead cryptic species complexes. Pas...

We present the observations of the afterglow of gamma-ray burst GRB 090102. We use optical data taken by the TAROT, REM, GROND, Palomar and NOT telescopes, and X-ray data taken by the XRT instrument on board the Swift spacecraft. This event features an unusual light curve. In X-rays, it presents a very monotonic decrease with no hint of temporal break from 0.005 to 6 days after the burst. In op...