Asset or liability? Aquaculture in a natural disaster prone area

Cyclone Sidr, which hit in November 2007, caused widespread damage and death among communities in coastal Bangladesh. A range of actions or ‘coping strategies’ were employed by households to ensure that their families had sufficient food and income resources to survive in the months following the cyclone. Coping strategies adopted by the households were categorized into three groups (i) food related, ii) income generated through selling assets, and iii) income generated though borrowing money. We found that the range of coping strategies adopted did not depend statistically on access to aquaculture assets, indicating that neither group (those with aquaculture assets and those without aquaculture assets) was better equipped to cope with the disaster. Aquaculture ponds were, however, important for supplying food and income in the post-disaster period and 78% of households were willing to re-invest in aquaculture despite the risk of stock losses and damage to infrastructure during recurrent disasters. It is concluded that aquaculture ponds are likely to provide a mechanism for coping after a disaster, despite the costs involved in repairing them. We recommend that aquaculture development be promoted for income and food security for rural families but that development occurs in areas that does not compromise other ecosystem functions i.e., mangrove forests. Risk management strategies, such as raising fast growing fish, which shortens the production cycle and allows for early harvesting, be embedded into policy reforms. We also recommend that a diversified livelihood strategy including non-farm activities be included in the reforms

Homestead pond polyculture can improve access to nutritious small fish

In Bangladesh, homestead pond aquaculture currently comprises a polyculture of large fish species but provides an ideal environment to integrate a range of small fish species. Small fish consumed whole, with bones, head and eyes, are rich in micronutrients and are an integral part of diets, particularly for the poor. Results from three large projects demonstrate that the small fish, mola (Amblypharyngodon mola) contributes significantly to the micronutrients produced from all fish, in homestead ponds, in one production cycle. Mola contributed 98%, 56% and 35% of the total vitamin A, iron and zinc produced, respectively, despite comprising only 15% of the total fish production by weight. If consumed within the household, mola could contribute half of the vitamin A and a quarter of the iron intake recommended for a family of four, annually. Homestead ponds are uniquely accessible to women who prepare the household food. Further dissemination of the carp-small fish technology provides opportunities to target women and men together for training on fish production and consumption, nutrition and gender equity. Women only training is also recommended to enable them to engage fully, without feeling dominated by men. Partnering with the fisheries and health sectors will encourage sustainable uptake of this promising technology. Clearly, dissemination could have significant health benefits; however, improved monitoring and evaluation, particularly of dietary diversity and diet quality are essential. Research priorities should also include the production techniques of other small indigenous fish species (SIS), besides mola, and the power dynamics between women and men in operating homestead ponds

A natural language intelligent tutoring system for training pathologists: Implementation and evaluation

Introduction We developed and evaluated a Natural Language Interface (NLI) for an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) in Diagnostic Pathology. The system teaches residents to examine pathologic slides and write accurate pathology reports while providing immediate feedback on errors they make in their slide review and diagnostic reports. Residents can ask for help at any point in the case, and will receive context-specific feedback. Research questions We evaluated (1) the performance of our natural language system, (2) the effect of the system on learning (3) the effect of feedback timing on learning gains and (4) the effect of ReportTutor on performance to self-assessment correlations. Methods The study uses a crossover 2 × 2 factorial design. We recruited 20 subjects from 4 academic programs. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions-two conditions for the immediate interface, and two for the delayed interface. An expert dermatopathologist created a reference standard and 2 board certified AP/CP pathology fellows manually coded the residents' assessment reports. Subjects were given the opportunity to self grade their performance and we used a survey to determine student response to both interfaces. Results Our results show a highly significant improvement in report writing after one tutoring session with 4-fold increase in the learning gains with both interfaces but no effect of feedback timing on performance gains. Residents who used the immediate feedback interface first experienced a feature learning gain that is correlated with the number of cases they viewed. There was no correlation between performance and self-assessment in either condition. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V