American Lobster Settlement Index Update 2012

In a year that might be remembered as the one that brought climate change close to home for the lobster industry, lobster larvae in 2012 continued to settle mostly in the patterns we\u27ve seen before. The ocean heat wave that broke all the records and triggered an early shedder season does not seem to have had a corresponding positive effect on lobster settlement. Once again Maine\u27s lobster fishery boasted another year of historically high lobster landings, just as southern New England lobstermen still struggle with how to manage the fishery in a world of shell disease and dwindling recruitment. This issue of the Update summarizes the regional time trends in the settlement index and examines the first steps we\u27re taking in evaluating ALSI as an early warning system for the fishery

Research on Lobster Age-Size Relationships: Developing Regionally Specified Growth Models from Meta-analysis of Existing Data

Understanding age-to-body size relationships and their variability in the American lobster is critical to our ability to assess the impact of harvesting on yield, as well as to forecast trends in future recruitment. Crustaceans lack conspicuous age markers and are ectothermic, therefore estimating growth and size-at-age is especially challenging. Because the American lobster’s geographic range spans one of the steepest north-to-south gradients in ocean temperature on earth, variability due to environmental factors is especially important to consider when modeling growth. To date, the effects of temperature on lobster biological rates, particularly growth, have not been incorporated into growth models used by stock assessments. In thisstudyI developed a step-wise growth model for three oceanographically contrasting regions: southern New England, Gulf of Maine, and the Bay of Fundy. These regions span a thermal gradient from a warm, summer-stratified regime in the south, to a cool, well-mixed regime in the north. In Chapter 1, regionally specified step-wise probabilistic growth models were developed from empirical juvenile size-frequency distributions and tagging data. In Chapter 2, I modified this model to incorporate temperaturein terms of growing degree-days, a method based on thermal requirements of growth. Both models provide regionally specified estimates of lobster size-at-age and its variability. Additionally, the growing degree-day model can predict how a changing climate would alter growth trajectories. In Chapter 1 considerable regional differences in lobster growth were evident. In southern New England, growth is initially fastest, but an early onset of maturity slows growth dramatically at a relatively small size. In contrast, in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy, growth is initially slower than in the south, but maturity is delayed to a larger size and the subsequent decline in growth rate is less severe. The resulting regional growth curves give the mean and 95% confidence interval for the age lobsters recruit to the fishery. The growing degree-day model described in Chapter 2 attempted to use temperature to explain regional differences in growth. Iftemperaturewas the dominant factor determining regional growth differences, I would expect the three regional growth trajectories to converge when expressed on a scale of growing degree-days. Such convergence was only partly realized. However, back-calculating these results to a scale ofcalendar-daysgave only slightly slower growth trajectories than the original model developed in Chapter 1. When using this model to make predictions for changing climate scenarios, varying the size-at-maturity along with temperature helped to explain regional growth trajectories. Future model development would benefit from an understanding of why the onset of maturity affects body growth more severely under warmer conditions. Thus, while regionally-specified models have advanced our ability to account for regional differences in lobster growth, they have yet to adequately include the environmental factors that determine those differences. Temperature surely plays an important role in the observed regional differences in both the onset of sexual maturity and growth, however, I cannot rule out other factors that may also be important, such as food availability, population density, or local adaptation

Health care utilization in a sample of Canadian lesbian women: Predictors of risk and resilience

This study was designed to test an exploratory path model predicting health care utilization by lesbian women. Using structural equation modeling we examined the joint influence of internalized homophobia, feminism, comfort with health care providers (HCPs), education, and disclosure of sexual identity both in one\u27s life and to one\u27s HCP on health care utilization. Surveys were completed by 254 Canadian lesbian women (54% participation rate) recruited through snowball sampling and specialized media. The majority (95%) of women were White, 3% (n = 7) were women of colour, and the remaining six women did not indicate ethnicity. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 67 with a mean age of 38.85 years (SD = 9.12). In the final path model, higher education predicted greater feminism, more disclosure to HCPs, and better utilization of health services. Feminism predicted both decreased levels of internalized homophobia and increased disclosure across relationships. Being more open about one\u27s sexual identity was related to increased disclosure to HCPs, which in turn, led to better health care utilization. Finally, the more comfortable women were with their HCP the more likely they were to seek preventive care. All paths were significant at p \u3c .01. The path model offers insight into potential target areas for intervention with the goal of improving health care utilization in lesbian women. © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved

Body image and sociocultural norms: A comparison of heterosexual and lesbian women

Internalization of sociocultural norms about the body has been theorized to be an important factor in fostering body dissatisfaction in women. Some theorists have suggested that a lesbian identity may buffer or immunize lesbians from the damaging effects of society\u27s pressure to be thin by reducing this internalization. This study was designed to test this claim empirically. Questionnaires were completed by 108 lesbians and 115 heterosexual women recruited through snowball sampling. Lesbians felt more fit, reported less negative attitudes toward their lower bodies, and internalized sociocultural norms less than heterosexual women. For all women, internalization of sociocultural norms significantly predicted body attitudes. Lesbians and heterosexual women appear to be similarly exposed to and aware of society\u27s messages, and as such their body attitudes substantially overlap. However, lesbians are buffered from these views in some specific areas. These differences appear to be primarily the result of differential internalization of sociocultural norms

Health-status outcomes with invasive or conservative care in coronary disease

BACKGROUND In the ISCHEMIA trial, an invasive strategy with angiographic assessment and revascularization did not reduce clinical events among patients with stable ischemic heart disease and moderate or severe ischemia. A secondary objective of the trial was to assess angina-related health status among these patients. METHODS We assessed angina-related symptoms, function, and quality of life with the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) at randomization, at months 1.5, 3, and 6, and every 6 months thereafter in participants who had been randomly assigned to an invasive treatment strategy (2295 participants) or a conservative strategy (2322). Mixed-effects cumulative probability models within a Bayesian framework were used to estimate differences between the treatment groups. The primary outcome of this health-status analysis was the SAQ summary score (scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better health status). All analyses were performed in the overall population and according to baseline angina frequency. RESULTS At baseline, 35% of patients reported having no angina in the previous month. SAQ summary scores increased in both treatment groups, with increases at 3, 12, and 36 months that were 4.1 points (95% credible interval, 3.2 to 5.0), 4.2 points (95% credible interval, 3.3 to 5.1), and 2.9 points (95% credible interval, 2.2 to 3.7) higher with the invasive strategy than with the conservative strategy. Differences were larger among participants who had more frequent angina at baseline (8.5 vs. 0.1 points at 3 months and 5.3 vs. 1.2 points at 36 months among participants with daily or weekly angina as compared with no angina). CONCLUSIONS In the overall trial population with moderate or severe ischemia, which included 35% of participants without angina at baseline, patients randomly assigned to the invasive strategy had greater improvement in angina-related health status than those assigned to the conservative strategy. The modest mean differences favoring the invasive strategy in the overall group reflected minimal differences among asymptomatic patients and larger differences among patients who had had angina at baseline