Seasonal foods, gonadal maturation, and length-weight relationships for nine fishes commonly captured by shrimp trawl on the Northwest Gulf of Mexico Continental Shelf

Recent emphasis on ecosystem approaches to fisheries management renews interest in, and the need for, trophic information about fish communities. A program was started in 1980 at the National Marine Fisheries Service Galveston Laboratory to develop a trophic database for continental shelf fishes. Collections were made during 1982-1983 that were processed but never published, yet the data remain valid today for historical purposes and for delimiting food web components within ecosystem assessments. I examined spring, summer, and fall foods in offshore populations of nine common species of trawl-susceptible fishes, with particular reference to predation on commercial penaeid shrimps (Farfantepenaeus and Litopenaeus). Diets were evaluated with the Index of Relative Importance (IRI) which combines the occurrence, number, and weight of each food item. Bank sea bass (Centropristis ocyurus) and bighead searobin (Prionotus tribulus) primarily consumed crabs, more so by larger than smaller fish. Inshore lizardfish (Synodus foetens) was almost entirely piscivorous. Ocellated flounder (Ancylopsetta ommata) consumed fishes, crabs, and stomatopods. Dwarf sand perch (Diplectrum bivittatum), blackwing searobin (Prionotus rubio), rock sea bass (Centropristis philadelphica), southern kingfish (Menticirrhus americanus), and red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) fed mainly on shrimps. Most fish diets varied with respect to size (age), time of day, area sampled, depth, or season. Rimapenaeus and Sicyonia were the most frequently identified shrimp genera - only five Farfantepenaeus and no Litopenaeus were identified in almost 4,300 fish stomachs. I also examined gonadal development and documented fish length-weight relationships. Ripe gonads were most frequently found during summer in dwarf sand perch, during fall in ocellated flounder and bighead searobin, and during spring for other species, except no ripe red snapper or bank sea bass were collected. Rock sea bass was found to be a protogynous hermaphrodite, while dwarf sand perch is a synchronous hermaphrodite. Only ocellated flounder and southern kingfish exhibited sex-related differences in length-weight relationships. (PDF contains 40 pages.

Tsunami preparedness communication : understanding the business audience : a research report completed in partial fulfilment of the Master of Communication degree at Massey University, Wellington

Previous research conducted by GNS Science pre and post the 2016 Kaikōura Quake identified that the New Zealand public does not sufficiently understand the risks posed by tsunami hazards, and in particular there is limited awareness about the different responses required for local, regional, and distant-source tsunami events. This research was undertaken to delve deeper and generate new insights into the reasons behind that finding, specifically for one key audience: business leaders. This audience was primarily chosen because businesses play a key interdependent role in disaster response and community recovery. An audience-centred communication approach was chosen over the traditional mass communication approach most often applied in emergency management practice to date. A qualitative approach was selected because of its ability to provide complementary data to existing quantitative studies. Data were collected from twelve business-focussed community leaders, and business owners/senior managers in coastal Tauranga (Pāpāmoa) and Wellington (Rongotai), through a series of semi-structured interview conversations and email questionnaires. The data gathering instruments were designed to better understand the participants’: (1) tsunami knowledge and awareness; (2) tsunami risk perception; (3) existing tsunami preparedness; and (4) behavioural intent for future tsunami preparedness initiatives. Field observations and engagement with emergency management professionals provided greater depth of understanding and enhanced the contextual aspects of the research. The overall findings and themes emerging from this research suggest that: ● As indicated in the wider survey, there is a lack of tsunami awareness and preparedness among the business audience More specifically in the audience-centred context: ● There is confusion surrounding the roles and responsibilities of official emergency management organisations ● There is a need for improved organisational Health & Safety understanding and compliance concerning natural hazards in the business community ● Different stakeholders, even within the business audience, have different tsunami preparedness wants and needs The research also identified that: ● Some business leaders are willing to act as conduits for tsunami preparedness in their organisations and communities; viewing it as part of their identity and responsibility as a business leader. Specific suggestions for improved tsunami preparedness communication include: ● Ongoing stakeholder engagement and tsunami education with proactive ‘opinion leaders’ in the business community ● Adopting further targeted audience-centred approaches to improve the spread of preparedness messages through society ● A revision of existing official tsunami preparedness material and tsunami mapping to better meet the needs of end users, such as with customised co-developed material for business community needs in different regions ● Enhancing preparedness communication through the researcher’s ‘Five C’s Model

ISO Classical Pronunciation Guide 1992 & 1993

Pronunciation guides used by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra staff to insure accurate pronunciation of composer’s and performer’s names as well as those of certain compositions

Overcenter collet space station truss fastener

A quick-connect fastener is arranged with a tubular body that is arranged to be engaged against the exterior surface of a hollow attachment fitting and coincidentally aligned with an opening in the fitting. A collet having normally-contracted fingers with outwardly-enlarged ends is operatively arranged in the body to be moved forwardly by an expander member mounted in the tubular body for advancing the collet fingers through the opening in the attachment fitting. Biasing means are arranged between the expander member and a toggle linkage in the tubular body which is selectively operated to urge the expander member forwardly into engagement with the collet fingers with an initial biasing force to advance their forward portions through the body opening and then expand them outwardly. The biasing means also provide a subsequent biasing force for retaining the collet members in their expanded positions once their enlarged forward end portions are on the opposite side of the body

Review of The Shadow of the Precursor edited by Diana Glenn, Md Rezaul Haque, Ben Kooyman and Nena Bierbaum

Review of The Shadow of the Precursor edited by Diana Glenn, Md Rezaul Haque, Ben Kooyman and Nena Bierbau

A simple person's approach to understanding the contagion condition for spreading processes on generalized random networks

We present derivations of the contagion condition for a range of spreading mechanisms on families of generalized random networks and bipartite random networks. We show how the contagion condition can be broken into three elements, two structural in nature, and the third a meshing of the contagion process and the network. The contagion conditions we obtain reflect the spreading dynamics in a clear, interpretable way. For threshold contagion, we discuss results for all-to-all and random network versions of the model, and draw connections between them.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures; chapter to appear in "Spreading Dynamics in Social Systems"; Eds. Sune Lehmann and Yong-Yeol Ahn, Springer Natur