Aquaculture Perspective of Multi-Use Sites in the Open Ocean: The Untapped Potential for Marine Resources in the Anthropocene

This volume addresses the potential for combining large-scale marine aquaculture of macroalgae, molluscs, crustaceans, and finfish, with offshore structures, primarily those associated with energy production, such as wind turbines and oil-drilling platforms. The volume offers a comprehensive overview and includes chapters on policy, science, engineering, and economic aspects to make this concept a reality. The compilation of chapters authored by internationally recognized researchers across the globe addresses the theoretical and practical aspects of multi-use, and presents case studies of research, development, and demonstration-scale installations in the US and EU

Building Industries at Sea - ‘Blue Growth’ and the New Maritime Economy

Throughout the world there is evidence of mounting interest in marine resources and new maritime industries to create jobs, economic growth and to help in the provision of energy and food security. Expanding populations, insecurity of traditional sources of supply and the effects of climate change add urgency to a perceived need to address and overcome the serious challenges of working in the maritime environment. Four promising areas of activity for ‘Blue Growth’ have been identified at European Union policy level including Aquaculture; Renewable Energy (offshore wind, wave and tide); Seabed Mining; and Blue Biotechnology. Work has started to raise the technological and investment readiness levels (TRLs and IRLs) of these prospective industries drawing on the experience of established maritime industries such as Offshore Oil and Gas; Shipping; Fisheries and Tourism. An accord has to be struck between policy makers and regulators on the one hand, anxious to direct research and business incentives in effective and efficient directions, and developers, investors and businesses on the other, anxious to reduce the risks of such potentially profitable but innovative investments.The EU H2020 MARIBE (Marine Investment for the Blue Economy) funded project was designed to identify the key technical and non-technical challenges facing maritime industries and to place them into the social and economic context of the coastal and ocean economy. MARIBE went on to examine with companies, real projects for the combination of marine industry sectors into multi-use platforms (MUPs). The purpose of this book is to publish the detailed analysis of each prospective and established maritime business sector. Sector experts working to a common template explain what these industries are, how they work, their prospects to create wealth and employment, and where they currently stand in terms of innovation, trends and their lifecycle. The book goes on to describe progress with the changing regulatory and planning regimes in the European Sea Basins including the Caribbean where there are significant European interests. The book includes:• Experienced chapter authors from a truly multidisciplinary team of sector specialisms• First extensive study to compare and contrast traditional Blue Economy with Blue Growth• Complementary to EU and National policies for multi-use of maritime spac

Building Industries at Sea - ‘Blue Growth’ and the New Maritime Economy

Throughout the world there is evidence of mounting interest in marine resources and new maritime industries to create jobs, economic growth and to help in the provision of energy and food security. Expanding populations, insecurity of traditional sources of supply and the effects of climate change add urgency to a perceived need to address and overcome the serious challenges of working in the maritime environment. Four promising areas of activity for ‘Blue Growth’ have been identified at European Union policy level including Aquaculture; Renewable Energy (offshore wind, wave and tide); Seabed Mining; and Blue Biotechnology. Work has started to raise the technological and investment readiness levels (TRLs and IRLs) of these prospective industries drawing on the experience of established maritime industries such as Offshore Oil and Gas; Shipping; Fisheries and Tourism. An accord has to be struck between policy makers and regulators on the one hand, anxious to direct research and business incentives in effective and efficient directions, and developers, investors and businesses on the other, anxious to reduce the risks of such potentially profitable but innovative investments.The EU H2020 MARIBE (Marine Investment for the Blue Economy) funded project was designed to identify the key technical and non-technical challenges facing maritime industries and to place them into the social and economic context of the coastal and ocean economy. MARIBE went on to examine with companies, real projects for the combination of marine industry sectors into multi-use platforms (MUPs). The purpose of this book is to publish the detailed analysis of each prospective and established maritime business sector. Sector experts working to a common template explain what these industries are, how they work, their prospects to create wealth and employment, and where they currently stand in terms of innovation, trends and their lifecycle. The book goes on to describe progress with the changing regulatory and planning regimes in the European Sea Basins including the Caribbean where there are significant European interests. The book includes:• Experienced chapter authors from a truly multidisciplinary team of sector specialisms• First extensive study to compare and contrast traditional Blue Economy with Blue Growth• Complementary to EU and National policies for multi-use of maritime spac

Selection of Robust Features for Coin Recognition and Counterfeit Coin Detection

Tremendous numbers of coins have been used in our daily life since ancient times. Aside from being a medium of goods and services, coins are items most collected worldwide. Simultaneously to the increasing number of coins in use, the number of counterfeit coins released into circulation is on the rise. Some countries have started to take different security measures to detect and eliminate counterfeit coins. However, the current measures are very expensive and ineffective such as the case in UK which recently decided to replace the whole coin design and release a new coin incorporating a set of security features. The demands of a cost effective and robust computer-aided system to classify and authenticate those coins have increased as a result. In this thesis, the design and implementation of coin recognition and counterfeit coin detection methods are proposed. This involves studying different coin stamp features and analyzing the sets of features that can uniquely and precisely differentiate coins of different countries and reject counterfeit coins. In addition, a new character segmentation method crafted for characters from coin images is proposed in this thesis. The proposed method for character segmentation is independent of the language of those characters. The experiments were performed on different coins with various characters and languages. The results show the effectiveness of the method to extract characters from different coins. The proposed method is the first to address character segmentation from coins. Coin recognition has been investigated in several research studies and different features have been selected for that purpose. This thesis proposes a new coin recognition method that focuses on small parts of the coin (characters) instead of extracting features from the whole coin image as proposed by other researchers. The method is evaluated on coins from different countries having different complexities, sizes, and qualities. The experimental results show that the proposed method compares favorably with other methods, and requires lower computational costs. Counterfeit coin detection is more challenging than coin recognition where the differences between genuine and counterfeit coins are much smaller. The high quality forged coins are very similar to genuine coins, yet the coin stamp features are never identical. This thesis discusses two counterfeit coin detection methods based on different features. The first method consists of an ensemble of three classifiers, where a fine-tuned convolutional neural network is used to extract features from coins to train two classifiers. The third classifier is trained on features extracted from textual area of the coin. On the other hand, sets of edge-based measures are used in the second method. Those measures are used to track differences in coin stamp’s edges between the test coin and a set of reference coins. A binary classifier is then trained based on the results of those measures. Finally, a series of experimental evaluation and tests have been performed to evaluate the effectiveness of these proposed methods, and they show that promising results have been achieved

High Level Review of a Wide Range of Proposed Marine Geoengineering Techniques

This report comprehensively examines a wide range o marine geoengineering techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or boost the reflection of incoming solar radiation to space (albedo modification) or in some cases both. Further, the report recommends a) that a coordinated framework for proposing marine geoengineering activities, submitting supporting evidence and integrating independent expert assessment must be developed and b) that a greater expertise on wider societal issues is sought with the aim to establish a knowledge base and provide a subsequent analysis of the major gaps in socio-economics and geopolitics

A decision support tool to improve binational water quality planning and management in the lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo

This dissertation describes the development of a decision support tool designed to facilitate and enhance collaborative binational decision making associated with integrated transboundary water quality planning and management in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo. The Lower Rio Grande Water Quality Initiative Decision Support System (LRGWQIDSS) is the result of a multidisciplinary effort to integrate the results of qualitative social science research and traditional and novel engineering and geographic information systems (GIS) methods associated with the modeling, analysis, and visualization of watershed, water quality and natural resources data. The LRGWQIDSS incorporates information currently used by urban planning and natural resource management organizations working along the Texas-Mexico border area and provides a means to analyze and display the information in a way that is useful to institutional and noninstitutional actors involved in transboundary water quality planning efforts. The analysis of the institutional arrangements currently in place to protect water quality in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo played an important role in the design and development of the LRGWQIDSS and its successful application. The tool’s development represents a case study in the importance of the role of institutional analysis in the successful development of decision support systems for transboundary water quality management.Public Polic

High Level Review of a Wide Range of Proposed Marine Geoengineering Techniques

This report comprehensively examines a wide range o marine geoengineering techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or boost the reflection of incoming solar radiation to space (albedo modification) or in some cases both. Further, the report recommends a) that a coordinated framework for proposing marine geoengineering activities, submitting supporting evidence and integrating independent expert assessment must be developed and b) that a greater expertise on wider societal issues is sought with the aim to establish a knowledge base and provide a subsequent analysis of the major gaps in socio-economics and geopolitics

Improving the sustainability of aquaculture: investigating novel experimental concepts and techniques

The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate novel concepts and techniques that have the potential to improve the sustainability of the marine aquaculture industry. The focus of the research described here is on novel ecosystem approaches to aquaculture management by integrating species from multiple trophic levels into one system. This has been termed Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA), a concept that combines (ideally, in the appropriate proportions) the cultivation of fed aquaculture species (e.g. finfish or shrimp), with organic and inorganic extractive species (e.g. bivalve molluscs, seaweed or halophytes). Emphasis throughout has been placed on improving techniques and novel concepts that have the potential to be of practical sustainable use to existing and future industrial aquaculture operations. Chapter 1 specifically details the development of sustainable saltwater-based food production systems, with a focus on established and emerging concepts. In Chapter 2, the biofiltering capacity of the halophyte Salicornia europaea is assessed, with a focus on biofiltering capacity when irrigated with wastewater from an oyster hatchery and cultivated via the novel hydroponic techniques. In Chapter 3, the efficacy of different stratification methodologies on S. europaea seed germination and growth are assessed, while Chapter 4 deals with the effectiveness of three anaesthetics in reducing error when measuring the size of cotton-spinner sea cucumber Holothuria forskali. The efficacy of passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags for H. forskali are assessed in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 describes the cultivation of six species of seaweed in small-scale zero exchange maraponic systems with blue mussels (Mytilus edulis), Japanese abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) and Holothuria forskali. Finally, Chapter 7 details practical considerations and theoretical aspects of set-up and operation of a pilot-scale IMTA system (seaweed longlines containing Alaria esculenta and Saccharina latissima) in conjunction with a commercial organic salmon farm in Southern Ireland.

Evaluating the sustainability of urban agriculture projects

Evaluating the sustainability of urban agriculture projects. 5. International Symposium for Farming Systems Design (AGRO2015