The editors of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2015.

The editors of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2015.

Setting students on a path to success in careers in science is a challenge in poor rural Appalachian public schools. Students face many socioeconomic obstacles. Their teachers are also limited by many factors including inadequate facilities, under-funding, geographical isolation of the schools, and state-testing constraints. Additionally, students and teachers lack the availability of outside science educational opportunities. In an effort to address this situation, 24 academically strong high school junior girls and their teachers from the Carter County School System in rural east Tennessee were invited for a laboratory day at Milligan College, a small liberal arts college in the heart of the county. Science faculty, female science majors, and admissions staff volunteered in service to the project. The event included three laboratory sessions, lunch in the college cafeteria, and campus tours. This successful example, as evidenced by positive evaluations by the invited girls and their teachers, of educational outreach by a local, small liberal arts college to a rural county school system provides a model for establishing a relationship between higher education institutions and these underprivileged schools, with the intention of drawing more of these poor, rural Appalachian students, particularly girls, into a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career path. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education

Disorders of sex development (DSD) have long been documented in domestic animal species including horses. However, there is only a single report of an androgen receptor mutation causative of such a DSD syndrome in a horse pedigree. Here, we present a new familial AR mutation in horses. A missense mutation (c.2042G>C) at AR exon 4 explains the segregation of the DSD in a Thoroughbred horse pedigree. The mutation, expected to affect the ligand-binding domain of the androgen receptor protein, led to complete androgen insensitivity of XY SRY+, testicular DSD individuals. Additionally, design of a PCR-RFLP technique provided an accurate molecular test for identification of horses carrying the mutation. | The work was supported by the National Science and Engineering Research (NSERC) Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chairs Program. | http://content.karger.com/Journal/Home/231547 | hb2016 | Production Animal Studies

This work investigated the electrocatalytic degradation of an azo dye by electrochemical oxidation on copper oxide anode. The influence current density, time of electrolysis, temperature, the conductive salt concentration and the initial dye concentrations were critically examined. The results of these influences are expressed in terms of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD removal). Also, both of the current efficiency and power consumption values are calculated. In this paper we report that, the highest electrocatalytic activity was achieved in the presence of NaCl (0.1 M), 50 mA/cm2, pH of 3 and temperature of 30 °C. The highest electroactivity could be attributed to the contribution from direct oxidation via reaction of this dye with the electrogenerated hydroxyl radicals adsorbed on the copper oxide surface.

Groundwater is a globally important and valuable resource for all aspects of life, human activities and development. It constitutes a major portion of the earth water circulatory system known as hydrologic cycle and occurs in permeable geologic formulations known as aquifers. It acts as a reservoir of water to that provides "buffer storage" during drought period. Vulnerability assessments may or may not account for the different behavior of different contaminants in the environment. There are two general types of vulnerability assessments, the first addresses specific vulnerability referring to specific contaminants and the second addresses intrinsic vulnerability. The overall utility of the vulnerability assessment is highly dependent on the scale at which it is conducted. The main objective of this research work is to assess vulnerability of groundwater in Khartoum State (Sudan) to contamination and to determine the extent of actual contamination. Biological, chemical, physical tests were conducted, beside filed surveys, sanitary surveillance and Drastic Index techniques were used. The study revealed that, the ground water is distributed without any treatment. Asbestos and iron pipes in the network distribution system constitute more than 18%, and the results of the bacteriological tests showed strong relationship between the contaminant source and the presence of bacteria in the water.

The influence of an aromatic quinone derivative, 5, 12-Naphthacenequinone (NCQ) as corrosion inhibitor on mild steel in 1 M hydrochloric acid was studied by weight loss, Tafel polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique. The results showed that the inhibition efficiency (% IE) of NCQ increased with increasing inhibitor concentrations. NCQ acted as a mixed type of inhibitor and its adsorption on mild steel surface was found to follow Langmuir’s adsorption isotherm. The evaluation of thermodynamic indicated that the adsorption of NCQ takes place through chemical and physical adsorption. The adsorption of the compound on the metal surface has verified using SEM analysis.

Water pollution is a major environmental problem especially that produced from different industries, which produce large amounts of toxic heavy metals to the soil and wastewater; these heavy metals affect human health. This study was made to study the removal of one of these toxic heavy metals which is Cr(VI) by adsorption technique using silica gel compound 3-Glycidoxypropyl- functionalized silica.The adsorption experiments were applied for a range of pH (2-13), temperature, adsorbent dosage, initial concentration, and contact time. The results revealed that the percentage removal of Cr(VI) decreased with the increase of Cr(VI) concentration, pH and temperature, while the percentage removal increase with increase contact time and adsorbent dose.The removal efficiency for Cr(VI) adsorption was more than 75% after 24 hour this achieved at pH around 6, and temperature 25ºC, using 0.04g weight of dose, at initial concentration 10 ppm for 10 mL Cr(VI) solution.The adsorption of Cr(VI) onto MSiTh was optimized under acidic conditions (pH< 7) at room temperature. According to pseudo second order the Cr(VI) sorption, the results achieved shows the MSiTh is able to remove Cr(VI)within 20 min with high removal efficiency.

The corrosion behavior of C38 steel in Hcl solution with different concentration of 3,3'-Dimethylbiphenyl-4,4'-diamin (O.Tolidine)(OT) ,was investigated by weight loss and electrochemical measurements. The effect of temperature on the corrosion behavior with the addition of (OT) was studied in the temperature range 298–328 K. Results obtained reveal that (OT) performs excellently as good corrosion inhibitor for C38 steel in 1.0 M Hcl. Potentiodynamic polarization studies have shown that (OT) behaves as mixed-type inhibitors. The inhibition efficiencies, calculated from weight loss measurements, show the same trend as those obtained from electrochemical studies. Also, the inhibition efficiency was found to increase with increase of the inhibitor concentrations to reach 87.84 % at 10-3M of (OT) due to the adsorption of the inhibitor molecules on the metal surface and the adsorption follows Langmuir’s adsorption isotherm. EIS spectra exhibit one capacitive loop and confirm the inhibitive ability. To elaborate the mechanism of corrosion inhibition, the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters for Carbon steel corrosion and inhibitor adsorption, respectively were determined and discussed. Double layer capacitance and charge transfer resistance values were derived from Nyquist plots obtained from impedance studies.

Copper (I) oxide polycrystalline thin films (Cu2O) were synthesized by cathodic electrochemical process. The solution was prepared from a basic solution of copper sulfate using tartaric acid as a stabilizer. The structural characteristics have been studied by X-ray diffraction “XRD” for phase composition and crystallinity. Particle sizes, morphology and elemental composition of cuprite thin films were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The results indicated that Cu2O samples retained a cubic structure. The morphologies of electrodeposited samples consisted of different shapes depending on the studied parameters such as current density, bath temperature and nature of substrate.