Making the most of data-poor fisheries: low cost mapping of small island fisheries to inform policy

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Data scarcity in small-scale fisheries hinders the effective management of marine resources. This is particularly true within small island developing states that often have limited capacity for monitoring activities that could inform policy decisions. This study estimates the spatial distribution of fishing activity in the data-poor nearshore reef fisheries of Barbados using low cost interview surveys of fishers combined with a geospatial platform. With data from over 150 fishers in the island's major reef fisheries, the estimated total annual yield ranged from 272.6 to 409.0 mt, with seine fishing accounting for 65% of landings. This estimate is substantially higher than the recorded landings in official databases. Fishing activity is concentrated on the sheltered and heavily populated West Coast of the island. Reef fishing effort decreases markedly during the months associated with the offshore pelagic fishery season, as many fishers switch fisheries during this time and rough sea conditions restrict access to the nearshore windward reefs. The high levels of fishing intensity and low yields per unit of reef area appear to validate anecdotal evidence that the nearshore reefs of Barbados are heavily overexploited. The qualitative nature of interview data and other data gaps hinder the precise estimation of fishing effort and yield, where relative values are likely to be more accurate than absolute values. Nonetheless, the spatially and temporally explicit data generated here demonstrates how simple cost-effective methods can be used to fill important information gaps for marine resource management and spatial planning.This work represents part of the research of the Future of Reefs in a Changing Environment (FORCE) project funded by the European Union 7th Framework programme (P7/2007–2013) under grant agreement No. 244161. This work was supported by the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados

EMG activity of upper limb on spinal cord injury individuals during whole-body vibration

Whole-body vibration (WBV) has shown positive results increasing electromyographic (EMG) activity and strength in a healthy population when applied to upper and lower limbs. The aim of this study was to verify if WBV increases the EMG signal of the upper limb muscles in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). For this study, 15 patients with SCI were selected and one single session of WBV was applied to the upper limb. Five sessions of 30 s at 30 Hz were applied and EMG of anterior deltoid and forearm muscles was measured. The results show that EMG activity had a significant increase during WBV session compared with baseline muscle activity. These results support WBV as an efficient tool to increase the upper body EMG in individuals with SCI

Event Stream Processing with Multiple Threads

Current runtime verification tools seldom make use of multi-threading to speed up the evaluation of a property on a large event trace. In this paper, we present an extension to the BeepBeep 3 event stream engine that allows the use of multiple threads during the evaluation of a query. Various parallelization strategies are presented and described on simple examples. The implementation of these strategies is then evaluated empirically on a sample of problems. Compared to the previous, single-threaded version of the BeepBeep engine, the allocation of just a few threads to specific portions of a query provides dramatic improvement in terms of running time

Breakup of double emulsions in constrictions

We report the controlled breakup of double emulsion droplets as they flow through an orifice of a tapered nozzle. The results are summarized in a phase diagram in terms of the droplet-to-orifice diameter ratio and the capillary number. We identify a flow regime where the inner aqueous phase is released. © 2011 The Royal Society of Chemistry.postprin

The Dawn of Open Access to Phylogenetic Data

The scientific enterprise depends critically on the preservation of and open access to published data. This basic tenet applies acutely to phylogenies (estimates of evolutionary relationships among species). Increasingly, phylogenies are estimated from increasingly large, genome-scale datasets using increasingly complex statistical methods that require increasing levels of expertise and computational investment. Moreover, the resulting phylogenetic data provide an explicit historical perspective that critically informs research in a vast and growing number of scientific disciplines. One such use is the study of changes in rates of lineage diversification (speciation - extinction) through time. As part of a meta-analysis in this area, we sought to collect phylogenetic data (comprising nucleotide sequence alignment and tree files) from 217 studies published in 46 journals over a 13-year period. We document our attempts to procure those data (from online archives and by direct request to corresponding authors), and report results of analyses (using Bayesian logistic regression) to assess the impact of various factors on the success of our efforts. Overall, complete phylogenetic data for ~60% of these studies are effectively lost to science. Our study indicates that phylogenetic data are more likely to be deposited in online archives and/or shared upon request when: (1) the publishing journal has a strong data-sharing policy; (2) the publishing journal has a higher impact factor, and; (3) the data are requested from faculty rather than students. Although the situation appears dire, our analyses suggest that it is far from hopeless: recent initiatives by the scientific community -- including policy changes by journals and funding agencies -- are improving the state of affairs

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN VIET NAM

Microfinance plays an important role in the nation's financial inclusive system. Therefore, the development of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) increasingly receives the attention of governments, especially in developing countries. In which, financial sustainability is one of the determinants which measures the development of microfinance institutions (MFIs). In this research, the institutionalist approach is applied with the purpose of developing empirical evidence for the determinants that affect the financial sustainability of MFIs in Viet Nam. Financial sustainability is analyzed through the evaluation criteria of the investors and the wholesale lending organizations. The Fixed Effect Model is applied to determine the factors that affect the financial sustainability of MFIs in Viet Nam. Quantitative results show that the financial sustainability of MFIs is governed by five factors, including (i) the growth rate of MFIs’ outstanding loans, (ii) the efficiency of MFIs’ performance, (iii) the ratio of borrowers to the number of staffs of MFIs with a positive impact; (iv) the debt-to-equity ratio of MFIs; and (v) the incremental cost per client of the MFIs with negative effec

Scale invariance and universality of force networks in static granular matter

Force networks form the skeleton of static granular matter. They are the key ingredient to mechanical properties, such as stability, elasticity and sound transmission, which are of utmost importance for civil engineering and industrial processing. Previous studies have focused on the global structure of external forces (the boundary condition), and on the probability distribution of individual contact forces. The disordered spatial structure of the force network, however, has remained elusive so far. Here we report evidence for scale invariance of clusters of particles that interact via relatively strong forces. We analyzed granular packings generated by molecular dynamics simulations mimicking real granular matter; despite the visual variation, force networks for various values of the confining pressure and other parameters have identical scaling exponents and scaling function, and thus determine a universality class. Remarkably, the flat ensemble of force configurations--a simple generalization of equilibrium statistical mechanics--belongs to the same universality class, while some widely studied simplified models do not.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures; to appear in Natur