Book of Abstracts & Success Stories National Conference on Marine Debris COMAD 2018

Marine debris has become a global problem with considerable threats to the habitat and to the functions of marine ecosystem. One of the first reports of large areas of plastics in the ocean has been by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1988 about the Great Pacific Garbage patch or the Pacific trash vortex, where the density of litter is estimated as four numbers per cubic meter. Globally, this shocking information led to initiation of new research programs on marine litter and in India, the ICAR-CMFRI started an in house research program on this theme in 2007.Understanding the significance of this ecological problem which is purely a direct impact of anthropogenic activity, the Marine Biological Association of India decided to organise a National Conference on Marine Debris (COMAD 2018 ) with an aim to bring together researchers, planners, NGOs, entrepreneurs and local governing bodies working on this theme. Thus, this conference was planned with three main componentsunderstand the research outputs, get first- hand information on the various activities carried out by the public to reduce or recycle non degradable waste generated at various levels and also to have an exhibition of eco-friendly activities and products which would help to reduce marine debris in the long run. The response to all the three themes has been very encouraging. We have received about 50 research articles on themes ranging from micro-plastics to ghost nets and the same number of success stories which are actually details of the diverse activities carried out in different maritime states of the country to solve the issue of solid waste generated in the country. The section on success stories includes attempts by eco-clubs, individuals, schools, colleges, local governing bodies, district administrations, Institutions and NGOs. Activities by some Panchayats like banning plastics in public functions and mechanisms to collect sold waste from households are really commendable. Similarly, the efforts put in by various groups to remove marine debris from the coastal waters is something which should be appreciated. The message from these success stories is that, this problem of increasing marine debris can be resolved. We have got success stories from almost all states and these leaders of clean campaign will be presenting their work in the conference. It is well known that visuals such as photographs and videos are powerful tools of communication. In COMAD 2018, we have provided an opportunity for all across the nation to contribute to this theme through photographs and videos. Am very happy that we have received more than 300 photographs and nearly 25 videos. The MBAI will place these on the web site. It is really shocking to see the quantity of litter in the fishing ground and in the coastal ecosystem

CMFRI Annual Report 2018-19

CMFRI had 37 in-house research projects, 34 externally funded projects and 12 consultancy projects in operation in the year 2018-19. Total marine fish landings along the coast of mainland of India for the year 2018 is estimated at 3.49 million tonnes showing a decline of about 3.47 lakh tonnes (9%) compared to 3.83 million tonnes in 2107. Among the nine maritime states Gujarat remained in the first position with landings of 7.80 lakh tonnes followed by Tamil Nadu with 7.02 lakh tonnes. Indian oil sardine, the topmost contributor to the Indian marine fish basket recorded the sharpest fall of 54%, plummeting to ninth position from its first position in 2017. Indian mackerel became the topmost resource with a contribution on 2.84 lakh tonnes towards the total landings (8.1%). Sustained bumper landings of red toothed triggerfish (Odonus niger) were observed in the west coast since August 2018. There was considerable reduction in the number of fishing days in West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and SummaryPuducherry due to cyclonic storms Titli, Gaja and Phethai. The assemblage wise marine fish landings of Gujarat for the year 2018 showed the predominance of molluscan resources (7%). Pelagic finfish resources (38%), followed by demersal (30%), crustaceans (25%) and molluscan resources (7%). The marine fish landings in Maharashtra during 2018 was 2.95 lakh t with 22.5% decrease from previous year (3.81 lakh t in 2017). The prominent species/groups that contributed to the fishery of the state were non-penaeid shrimps (12.6%), penaeid shrimps (11.4%), croakers (10.2%), threadfin breams (8.4%), Indian mackerel (7.1%), Bombay duck (5.6%) and squids (5.2%). Marine fish landings in Kerala during 2018 were 6.42 lakh t which was 9.8% higher than that of the previous year (2017). The major resources in the catch was Indian mackerel (12.6%) followed by oil sardine (12%), threadfin breams (8.3%), Stolephorus (8%) and penaeid shrimps (7.9%). Pelagic finfishes dominated the landings with a share of 62%, which was 6.1% higher than that of the previous year’s estimated pelagic catch. The total marine landing in Tamil Nadu in 2018 was 7.02 lakh t showing an increase of 7% when compared to previous year. Pelagic finfishes formed 52.1%, demersal fin fishes 33%, crustaceans and cephalopod 7.5% each. The total landing in Puducherry was 45406 t showing an increase of 68% when compared to previous year. Pelagic resources formed 30.5%, demersal 27.2%, crustaceans 17.7% and cephalopods 22.2%. Marine landings of Andhra Pradesh were 1.92 lakh t in 2018. There was a decline of 3.6% in marine landings of the state from 2018 to 2017. The marine landings of the state have been in constant decline since the peak landings of 2014. Pelagic fishes were the dominant resource followed by demersal, crustaceans and molluscans. Lesser sardines dominated by weight accounting for 17.8% of the total fish landed. Among pelagics, major resources landed were clupeids (47.7%), mackerel (13.84%), carangids (12.4%), ribbonfish (7.25%), tunas (6.3%) and seerfish (3.15%). Barracuda and billfish contributed 2.49% and 1.6%, respectively. The major demersal resources were croakers (17.8%), other perches (10.2%), goatfish (9.9%), threadfin breams (8.9%) and catfish (8.6%). Crustacean landing was contributed by penaeid shrimps (68.9%), non-penaeid shrimps (2.8%), crabs (27.4%), lobsters (0.2%) and stomatopods (0.7%). The major molluscan resources were the cephalopods which comprised of the cuttlefishes (76.44%) and squids (23.56%). West Bengal during 2018 was 1.6 lakh t which decreased by about 56% compared to the previous year (3.6 lakh t). The total marine landings of Odisha coast during 2018 was estimated at 89178 t registering a decline of about 30% compared to the previous year (126958 t). Large pelagic fish landing during 2018 was only 249,876 t by registering an improvement of about 22% over the previous landing. Major share of the landing was constituted by tunas, followed by barracudas, seerfishes and billfishes. Among the maritime states Tamil Nadu is the major contributor, followed by Kerala, Gujarat and Karnataka. Elasmobranch landings in India during 2018 was 42,117 t, increasing marginally by 2% from the previous year. Tamil Nadu and Gujarat were the major contributors. The west coast accounted for 50.5% of the landings and the east coast, 49.5%. Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Gujarat and Daman and Diu together accounted for 68.4% of the total elasmobranch landings in the country. Bivalve production in 2018 in the country was estimated at 1,32,531 tonnes. The fishery was dominated by clams, consisting of 76.3%, followed by mussels, 15.3% and oysters, 8.4%. Clams dominated the fishery contributing 76.3% to the annual bivalve production followed by mussels, 15.3% and oysters, 8.4%. Gastropod fisheries assessment and developments in shell craft industry was also a part of the molluscan research

Energy Efficient XPath Query Processing on Wireless XML Streaming Data

An energy efficient way of disseminating XML data to several mobile clients is broadcast. Information such as alert on emergencies, election results and sporting event results can be of interest to large number of mobile clients. Since eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is widely used for information exchange, wireless information services require an energy efficient XML data dissemination. XML Path (XPath) represents selective data required by mobile clients. XPath query processing involves two performance metrics, namely tune-in time and access time. In this paper, we propose a novel structure for streaming XML data called Path Stream Group Level (PSGL) node by exploiting the tree structure of XML document. It possesses various small indices such as level, child, sibling, attribute, text for selective download of XML data by mobile clients. It organizes data based on the level of XML document tree and groups XML elements with same XML path prefix to conserve battery power at mobile clients. Experimental results show that proposed method has reduced tune-in time when compared with existing approaches. Hence PSGL approach enhances performance with energy conservation for processing various types of XPath queries

Scalable system for smart urban transport management

Efficient management of smart transport systems requires the integration of various sensing technologies, as well as fast processing of a high volume of heterogeneous data, in order to perform smart analytics of urban networks in real time. However, dynamic response that relies on intelligent demand-side transport management is particularly challenging due to the increasing flow of transmitted sensor data. In this work, a novel smart service-driven, adaptable middleware architecture is proposed to acquire, store, manipulate, and integrate information from heterogeneous data sources in order to deliver smart analytics aimed at supporting strategic decision-making. The architecture offers adaptive and scalable data integration services for acquiring and processing dynamic data, delivering fast response time, and offering data mining and machine learning models for real-time prediction, combined with advanced visualisation techniques. The proposed solution has been implemented and validated, demonstrating its ability to provide real-time performance on the existing, operational, and large-scale bus network of a European capital city