ACAP advice for reducing the impact of pelagic longline fishing operations on seabirds

The incidental mortality of seabirds, mostly albatrosses and petrels, in longline fisheries continues to be aserious global concern and was the major reason for the establishment of the Agreement on theConservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP). In longline fisheries seabirds are killed when theybecome hooked and drowned while foraging for baits on longline hooks as the gear is deployed. Theyalso can become hooked as the gear is hauled, although many of these seabirds can be released alive withcareful handling. ACAP routinely reviews the scientific literature regarding seabird bycatch mitigation infisheries, and on the basis of these reviews updates its best practice advice. The most recent review wasconducted in May 2016 at ACAP´s Seabird Bycatch Working Group and Advisory Committee meetings(ACAP 2016), and this document presents a distillation of that review for the consideration of theWCPFC Scientific Committee. A combination of weighted branch lines, bird scaring lines and nightsetting remains the best practice approach to mitigate seabird bycatch in pelagic longline fisheries.Changes in this regard only applied to the recommended minimum standards for line weighting regimes,now updated to the following configurations: (a) 40 g or greater attached within 0.5 m of the hook; or (b)60 g or greater attached within 1 m of the hook; or (c) 80 g or greater attached within 2 m of the hook. Inaddition, ACAP endorsed the inclusion in the list of best practice measures of two hook-shielding devicesas stand-alone mitigation measures. Such hook-shielding devices encase the point and barb of baitedhooks until a prescribed depth or time immersed to prevent seabird becoming hooked during line setting.The following performance requirements were used by ACAP to assess the efficacy of hook-shieldingdevices in reducing seabird bycatch: (a) the device shields the hook until a prescribed depth of 10 m orimmersion time of 10 minutes is reached; (b) the device meets current recommended minimum standardsfor branch line weighting; and (c) experimental research has been undertaken to allow assessment of theeffectiveness, efficiency and practicality of the technology against the ACAP best practice seabird bycatchmitigation criteria. ACAP recognizes that factors such as safety, practicality and the characteristics of thefishery should also be taken into account when considering the efficacy of seabird bycatch mitigationmeasures and consequently in the development of advice and guidelines on best practice.Fil: Favero, Marco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; ArgentinaFil: Wolfaardt, Anton. No especifíca;Fil: Walker, Nathan. No especifíca;12th Regular Session of the Scientific CommitteePohnpeiMicronesiaWestern and Central Pacific Fisheries Commissio

New York City School Evaluations: Comparing Parent, Teacher, and Government Assessments

This thesis contains two studies examining survey evaluations of public schools. Survey evaluation results provide a novel means of measuring program performance, which is of particular interest to public administration scholars and practitioners. At the same time, uncertainty regarding the accuracy and utility of perceptual survey-based measures has led to scholarly criticism. Studying survey evaluations of public schools has use beyond helping to answer measurement questions. How parents form and express opinions about public schools has important implications for democracy and education policy. School choice scholars have devoted considerable attention to questions about what parents know and what they care about. The two studies contained in this thesis look at survey evaluations of New York City public schools from 2007 to 2009. Using a cross-sectional time-series approach, the evaluations are compared to government records of schools’ characteristics and performance. The first study (Chapter II) focuses on the overall satisfaction expressed by parents and teachers while the second study (Chapter III) picks apart multiple dimensions of satisfaction. The results from Chapter II support the notion that parents and teachers can perform intelligent, meaningful evaluations of their schools. At the same time, I encounter some difficulties in Chapter III when I try to use survey results to measure multiple dimensions of performance. I attempt to address one source of these difficulties, and the results seem to indicate that my method is somewhat successful at addressing the data problem

Representation in the Fourth Branch of Government: A Closer Look at the Link between Employee Demographics and Client Outcomes

Bureaucrats play a major part in implementing government programs and—ultimately—take on a policy making role in many contexts given the broad discretion bureaucrats often have as they go about their work. Representative bureaucracy theory suggests that unelected bureaucrats can serve as representatives of members of the public as they go about making policy by virtue of having shared demographic characteristics with some members of the public. Focusing mainly on the demographic characteristic of race, I consider various ways in which the demographic makeup of a bureaucracy might influence the extent to which that bureaucracy advances the interests of various segments of the public. After providing a theoretical framework, I conduct a series of empirical tests using large datasets of public organizations. Consistent with prior work, I generally find that clients of a particular race experience better outcomes when they are served by a bureaucracy that has more personnel who share their race. I also uncover several more novel findings. First, I measure two sets of bureaucratic values (representative role acceptance and general political ideology) and find that for the most part, differences in these values do not explain why bureaucracies with different racial compositions function differently. Second, I examine an example where the racial composition of a bureaucracy does not generally appear to affect bureaucratic outcomes and then find that effects do appear when bureaucratic clients have widely diverging service demands. Third, I find some evidence that differences in outcomes associated with bureaucratic racial composition are not fully explained by individual-level differences in bureaucratic behavior or client responses that fall along racial lines; instead, the racial composition of a bureaucracy appears to be related to bigger, organizational-level attributes of a bureaucracy. Fourth, minority bureaucrats appear to mostly benefit bureaucratic clients of their own race, with benefits not generally extending to clients belonging to other minority racial group. Taken as a whole, these results suggest the need for representative bureaucracy theory scholars to more carefully examine organizational context, bureaucratic values, and the tradeoffs inherent in bureaucratic decision-making

The development of ACAP seabird bycatch indicators, data needs, methodological approaches and reporting requirements

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) is a multilateral environmentalagreement that seeks to achieve and maintain a favourable conservation status for albatrosses andpetrels. The Agreement is currently ratified by 13 countries. In addition, a number of non-Party RangeStates and international organisations actively participate in the work of the Agreement. The Agreementprovides a framework for coordinating and undertaking international activity to mitigate known threatsto populations of affected species, including fisheries bycatch. In order to monitor and report on theperformance of the Agreement, a system of indicators following the Pressure-State-Responseframework is being developed and implemented by ACAP. The primary Pressure indicator for bycatchcomprises two linked components: (i) the seabird bycatch rate across each of the fisheries of memberParties, and (ii) the total number of birds killed (bycaught) per year of ACAP species (per species wherepossible). The Seabird Bycatch Working Group of ACAP is currently undertaking work to developguidelines on issues that need to be considered in estimating and reporting against these bycatchindicators and, considering the estimation methods currently in use, to propose guidance andrecommendations to achieve consistent reporting. This paper provides an outline of therecommendations and guidelines that have been developed to date. It is important to note that thisrepresents work in progress, and is presented here to help inform discussions regarding seabird bycatchestimation and reporting within the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) andother RFMOs.Fil: Wolfaardt, Anton. Agreement On The Conservation Of Albatrosses & Petrels; AustraliaFil: Debski, Igor. Agreement On The Conservation Of Albatrosses & Petrels; AustraliaFil: Misiak, Wieslawa. No especifíca;Fil: Walker, Nathan. Agreement On The Conservation Of Albatrosses & Petrels; AustraliaFil: Favero, Marco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; Argentina14th Regular Session of the Scientific CommitteePohnpeiMicronesiaWestern and Central Pacific Fisheries Commissio

Public Management on the Ground:Clustering Managers Based on Their Behavior

Public management research has identified a dizzying array of management variables that affect organizational performance. While scholars have learned much by analyzing one or a few specific behavioral dimensions of public management at a time, we argue for the value of a more holistic and inductive approach that uses data on several aspects of public management for identifying manager types. Such an approach accounts for both the cognitive processes of people affected by management and the reality that managers’ individual behavioral decisions are interrelated. We examine the overlap of 21 aspects of public school management behavior using cluster analysis. We identify four different manager types (“firefighters,” “laissez-faire managers,” “administrators,” and “proactive floor managers”), each reflecting a distinct constellation of managerial behaviors. The manager types we call “administrators” and “proactive floor managers” are associated with relatively better outcomes, while “firefighters” are associated with relatively worse outcomes

Modélisation du chauffage de flan circulaire dans un dispositif d'expansion biaxiale à haute température

Ce travail porte sur l'intégration d'un moyen de chauffage par conduction électrique (effet Joule) de flan circulaire au sein d'un dispositif d'expansion biaxiale. Ce dispositif permettra la caractérisation thermomécanique de l'Usibor®1500dans un trajet de déformation équibiaxiale à très haute température (jusqu'à 1°C). Dans un premier temps, on s'intéresse au chauffage de flan rectangulaire avec une confrontation entre expérience et simulation, qui a permis de valider le modèle thermoélectrique réalisé sous COMSOL Multiphysics®. Dans un second temps, on aborde l'optimisation du champ électrique afin d'obtenir un chauffage rapide et homogène d'un flan circulaire.This work focuses on the integration of an electrical conduction heating of circular blank in a bulge-test device. This device will allow the thermomechanical characterization of Usibor®1500under biaxial deformation at very high temperature (to 1°C). First a thermoelectric model using COMSOL Multiphysics® was developed to study the heating of a rectangular blank. This model is validated by comparing the calculated temperatures with thermocouple measurements. Secondly electrical field optimization is approached to obtain a fast and uniform heating of a circular blank

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

Surgical site infection after gastrointestinal surgery in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: a prospective, international, multicentre cohort study

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common infections associated with health care, but its importance as a global health priority is not fully understood. We quantified the burden of SSI after gastrointestinal surgery in countries in all parts of the world. Methods: This international, prospective, multicentre cohort study included consecutive patients undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection within 2-week time periods at any health-care facility in any country. Countries with participating centres were stratified into high-income, middle-income, and low-income groups according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI). Data variables from the GlobalSurg 1 study and other studies that have been found to affect the likelihood of SSI were entered into risk adjustment models. The primary outcome measure was the 30-day SSI incidence (defined by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for superficial and deep incisional SSI). Relationships with explanatory variables were examined using Bayesian multilevel logistic regression models. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02662231. Findings: Between Jan 4, 2016, and July 31, 2016, 13 265 records were submitted for analysis. 12 539 patients from 343 hospitals in 66 countries were included. 7339 (58·5%) patient were from high-HDI countries (193 hospitals in 30 countries), 3918 (31·2%) patients were from middle-HDI countries (82 hospitals in 18 countries), and 1282 (10·2%) patients were from low-HDI countries (68 hospitals in 18 countries). In total, 1538 (12·3%) patients had SSI within 30 days of surgery. The incidence of SSI varied between countries with high (691 [9·4%] of 7339 patients), middle (549 [14·0%] of 3918 patients), and low (298 [23·2%] of 1282) HDI (p < 0·001). The highest SSI incidence in each HDI group was after dirty surgery (102 [17·8%] of 574 patients in high-HDI countries; 74 [31·4%] of 236 patients in middle-HDI countries; 72 [39·8%] of 181 patients in low-HDI countries). Following risk factor adjustment, patients in low-HDI countries were at greatest risk of SSI (adjusted odds ratio 1·60, 95% credible interval 1·05–2·37; p=0·030). 132 (21·6%) of 610 patients with an SSI and a microbiology culture result had an infection that was resistant to the prophylactic antibiotic used. Resistant infections were detected in 49 (16·6%) of 295 patients in high-HDI countries, in 37 (19·8%) of 187 patients in middle-HDI countries, and in 46 (35·9%) of 128 patients in low-HDI countries (p < 0·001). Interpretation: Countries with a low HDI carry a disproportionately greater burden of SSI than countries with a middle or high HDI and might have higher rates of antibiotic resistance. In view of WHO recommendations on SSI prevention that highlight the absence of high-quality interventional research, urgent, pragmatic, randomised trials based in LMICs are needed to assess measures aiming to reduce this preventable complication

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts