Domestication of Thunnus thynnus – DOTT

The inception of the idea to domesticate the BFT as a European drive occurred while on a short sabbatical in Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Marine Policy Center in 1996. I was looking for a species or a group of species that will help close the developing gap between demand and supply of fish in the future, fish species that will serve, in times to come, as the “beef cattle” of the sea. I was looking for a species that has a fast growth rate, good ratio of edible meat to body weight (70%) and a wide temperature range. After screening many species, I have come to considering the Blue Fin Tuna (BFT) as a candidate Species for Future Mariculture. Controlling the life cycle of the BFT will also help maintaining and enhancing its wild population in the future by developing a re-stocking program. I aired the idea with a few colleagues (who became friends over the years) and received encouraging reactions (first stations; CIHEAM meeting in Tanger, Morocco, and then at the Univ. of Cadiz, Spain). It turned out that my idea was not an original one - a few countries had already launched national BFT domestication programs. The initiative came on fertile soil: 55 participants, 25 different R&D institutions and industry around the Med., including Non EU members (Malta, Cyprus, Tunisia, Morocco, Croatia and Israel). We decided to apply for a Concerted Action Program in the Fifth Framework Programme under the “Quality of life and management of living resources” key action of the European Commission – Parallel to the national initiatives in Europe, which were taken place in Spain, Italy and France. The objectives of the Concerted Action program were to prepare the RTD campaign, including priorities, interdisciplinary methodology, rational interactions amongst the different scientific disciplines and the cascade of steps for implementation. Emphasis was on Integration of Fishing Industry, the BFT Farming Industry, governments and the RTD Program. We tried to draw inferences from lessons learned in other countries such as the USA, Australia, and Japan and design our program accordingly. We put together a good proposal. However, the proposal was rejected based on it being too ambitious and too weak on the socio-economics aspects. Well, it was a set back and a disappointment. However, we did not give up. We, resorted to the EU Accompanying Measure Program, wrote another proposal to fund a meeting in which the State of Art regarding the BFT different aspects will be told, experience of BFT farming around the world will be discussed and foundations for RTD proposals will be initiated. The proposal was accepted. We have formed a Steering Committee, which met 3 times (first to prepare the proposal, second to prepare the meeting and third, 3 weeks ago, to finalize the program of the Conference, and solve all the small problems that always crop up in the preparation of meetings like this one). We also spent many hours on the email exchanging ideas, written parts of the proposal and the conference to follow. The first Conference on the Domestication of the Blue Fin Tuna (DOTT) which was held in Cartagena, Spain, and which this volume is presenting most of the presentations offered during the 5 days meeting, should be considered as a successful event. I, for one, am very happy with the conference itself and the outcome. We have been informed on most BFT activities around the world; state of the wild populations, BFT fisheries and landings, BFT fattening operations in different parts of the world such as Japan, Australia, Mexico, Malta, Croatia and Spain. There were very enlighten session on many of the BFT biological traits such as reproduction, larval rearing, nutrition, as well as behavioral and straddling aspects of this species. Most of the reports where given by people who have had direct experience in dealing with the BFT, however, many presentations had theoretical components in them. Following the plenary sessions, which lasted two and a half days, the participants were divided into workshops, which dealt with a few major disciplines concerning the domestication of the BFT. Most of the workshops lasted for two sessions of a few hours each. The ultimate goal of the workshop was to come up with a program and a skeleton for a research proposal to be submitted to the EU RTD Commission in Brussels. The first workshop was held still in the plenary forum and was devoted to the reproduction of the BFT. It was done as a demonstration and guideline to the other workshops, since a proposal in this field was submitted and approved by Brussels at the time. We had four workshops on the following subjects: 1. Socio-economics and environmental aspects of farming the BFT. 2. Larval and juvenile production of the BFT 3. Husbandry and nutrition of BFT farming 4. Engineering aspects of BFT farming. Short summaries of the above workshops can be found in the proceedings. The closing session of the conference was devoted to drawing a set of resolutions and adopting them by the plenary forum. These resolutions are aimed at increasing the awareness of the public, the different governments and the EU Community and its administration prospects of domestication the BFT and what it involves. The amended resolutions are attached to this chapter of the proceedings. We hope that the DOTT Conference has initiated a campaign, which will, eventually bring about the farming and restocking of the Bluefin Tuna. A worthwhile campaign, which will come to fruition in the next decade or two. On Behalf of the Steering Committee I want to thank a couple of funding institutions and a few key people that without their efforts and hard work this event would have stayed as an unrealised dream: The EU Commission for funding the DOTT conference, The Marine Policy Centre of Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole, Mass., USA My colleagues, who became friends, on the Steering Committee: Antonio Garcia and, the Spanish National Coordinator and Fernando de la Gandara both from IEO, Mazarron, without whom this meeting could not have happened. Prof. Christopher Bridges from the Univ. of Düsseldorf, who tirelessly was my anchor to sanity all along the last two and a half years. Prof. Gregorio DeMetrio from the Univ. of Bari who hosted the first meeting of the, would be, Steering Committee in 1999. Prof. Joaquin Roca, from the hosting Polytechnic Univ. of Cartagena who put a lot of effort into realizing the meeting. Drs. Antonio Medina and Gabriel Mourente from the Univ. of Cadiz who were the first recruits to the DOTT crusade ever since 1998. Gines Mendez, Atunes de Mazarron, the President of ASETUN, who hosted us and encouraged our activities all along. François Rene and Christian Fauvel from IFREMER, Palavas, France, who tirelessly helped in ideas, lobbying and organization on the French side of the border. Zarko Peric from Malta who came late to the Steering committee but contributed a lot to our rational. Dr. Constantinos Mylonas from IMBC, Crete, Greece who came on board strong and creative and last but not least, David De Monbrison from CEASM, Paris, France, who all along pointed out the political, social, economics and environmental issues involved it the DOTT. Our host, the Polytechnic Univ. of Cartagena and its president Prof. Juan Ramón Medina Precioso, and the vice President Prof. Antonio Garcia Sánchez. Antonio Belmonte who arranged all details of the visits to the farms and packing plants And to Isabel Belizon from ESLABON who helped organized the Meeting Many other people who lent a supportive hand during the long period of preparation for the meeting, which the space is too small to mention them all. Hillel Gordin DOTT Coordinator May 2002European Union – FP5 Quality of Life Program, Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Universidad Politecnica Cartagena, Institut Français de Recherche pour l ´Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Asociación de Empresarios de Túnidos de la Región de Murcia (ASETUN), Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes (CIHEAM) Asamblea Regional de Murcia, Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Cartagena, Concejalia de la Mujer

Urinary clusterin and cystatin B as biomarkers of tubular injury in dogs following envenomation by the European adder

Diagnosing acute kidney injury remains a challenge since the established renal biomarkers, serum creatinine (sCr) and symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) reflect glomerular function and not tubular injury. Sensitive tubular markers such as urinary clusterin (uClust) and cystatin B (uCysB) have been proposed to detect AKI at an earlier stage. Since envenomation by the European adder (Vipera berus berus) could serve as a spontaneous disease model of AKI we investigated these new biomarkers in affected dogs. Concentrations of uClust and uCysB as well as sCr and SDMA were analyzed retrospectively in stored samples from 26 dogs with snake envenomation and 13 healthy controls. Higher concentrations of uClust (P <0.012) and uCysB (P <0.001) were observed in the snake-envenomed group. Normalization of uClust and uCysB to urinary creatinine did not alter the results. No differences were observed in sCr and SDMA between the snake-envenomed group and the healthy control group. Spearman rank correlation analysis revealed a strong association of uClust with uCysB in the snake-envenomed dogs (r = 0.75 P <0.001) but not in the healthy controls. The high percentage of snake-envenomed dogs with increased uClust and uCysB concentrations in the absence of increased sCr and SDMA suggests renal tubular injury in the affected dogs. Larger prospective case-controlled studies are warranted to evaluate the clinical utility and prognostic value of these biomarkers.Peer reviewe

Efeito do ácido giberélico e da nutrição mineral no crescimento de mudas florestais nativas.

A demanda florestal do estado, compreende a uma área anual de colheita de 15 mil ha/ano, e uma área de plantio de cerca de 100 mil ha/ano. Crescente desde 2005, impulsionada pela criação de um pólo florestal mantido por empresas consumidoras de celulose, necessita de alta produção de mudas de qualidade em tempo hábil, havendo contudo, interesse em espécies nativas do cerrado. Gastos com mudas representam 30% do custo de implantação de um reflorestamento, isso se deve ao longo tempo que estas permanecem em viveiro, recebendo tratos culturais específicos e onerosos. As árvores nativas têm sido exploradas recentemente, porém um dos desafios é a produção de mudas de qualidade em menor tempo. O uso de uma fertilização adequada à cada espécie, bem como fitormônios que aceleram seu crescimento podem reduzir o tempo de produção e, consequentemente, seu custo, permitindo assim que o plantio de florestas torne-se cada vez mais acessível. Neste experimento objetivou-se avaliar o efeito da aplicação de diferentes soluções nutritivas e giberelina (GA3) no crescimento e desenvolvimento de mudas de cumbarú (Dipterix alata) e canafístula (Peltophorum dubium), visando acelerar o crescimento e agregar valor às mudas de forma que apresentassem melhor adaptação as condições de campo. As sementes foram germinadas em câmara de germinação tipo B.O.D. a 20°C. Posteriormente, as plântulas foram transplantadas para tubetes com substrato PLANTMAX. As mudas serão avaliadas nas características de altura e diâmetro de colo, peso fresco e peso seco da parte aérea e da raiz. Adotou-se delineamento em blocos ao acaso, com parcelas subdivididas, com 10 tratamentos e 8 repetições, para cada espécie. Os resultados serão submetidos à análise de variância por meio do programa computacional Estat

Crescimento inicial de pinhão-manso sob efeito de calagem e adubação, em solos de Mato Grosso do Sul.

bitstream/item/66215/1/32010.pdfFERTBIO

Climatization, Energy Efficiency and Environmental Protection

It is known that approximately 15% of the energy consumed in Ecuador is used for the operation of climate conditioning equipment and, on the other hand, most of the existing technology operates on the basis of the use of refrigerant gases Are invasive to the ozone layer. In the work, a case study is shown that allows the identification of a relevant result linked to an action of technological innovation based on the conversion of the R-22 gas by the R-290 gas, thus reducing the consumption of electric energy and reducing the Environmental inventory of the institution, achieving a better performance of the technology

Quasi-Two-Dimensional Dynamics of Plasmas and Fluids

In the lowest order of approximation quasi-twa-dimensional dynamics of planetary atmospheres and of plasmas in a magnetic field can be described by a common convective vortex equation, the Charney and Hasegawa-Mirna (CHM) equation. In contrast to the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation, the CHM equation admits "shielded vortex solutions" in a homogeneous limit and linear waves ("Rossby waves" in the planetary atmosphere and "drift waves" in plasmas) in the presence of inhomogeneity. Because of these properties, the nonlinear dynamics described by the CHM equation provide rich solutions which involve turbulent, coherent and wave behaviors. Bringing in non ideal effects such as resistivity makes the plasma equation significantly different from the atmospheric equation with such new effects as instability of the drift wave driven by the resistivity and density gradient. The model equation deviates from the CHM equation and becomes coupled with Maxwell equations. This article reviews the linear and nonlinear dynamics of the quasi-two-dimensional aspect of plasmas and planetary atmosphere starting from the introduction of the ideal model equation (CHM equation) and extending into the most recent progress in plasma turbulence.U. S. Department of Energy DE-FG05-80ET-53088Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of JapanFusion Research Cente

'She's like a daughter to me': insights into care, work and kinship from rural Russia

This article draws on ethnographic research into a state-funded homecare service in rural Russia. The article discusses intersections between care, work and kinship in the relationships between homecare workers and their elderly wards and explores the ways in which references to kinship, as a means of authenticating paid care and explaining its emotional content, reinforce public and private oppositions while doing little to relieve the tensions and conflicts of care work. The discussion brings together detailed empirical insights into local ideologies and practices as a way of generating new theoretical perspectives, which will be of relevance beyond the particular context of study

Canonical description of ideal magnetohydrodynamic flows and integrals of motion

In the framework of the variational principle the canonical variables describing ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows of general type (i.e., with spatially varying entropy and nonzero values of all topological invariants) are introduced. The corresponding complete velocity representation enables us not only to describe the general type flows in terms of single-valued functions, but also to solve the intriguing problem of the ``missing'' MHD integrals of motion. The set of hitherto known MHD local invariants and integrals of motion appears to be incomplete: for the vanishing magnetic field it does not reduce to the set of the conventional hydrodynamic invariants. And if the MHD analogs of the vorticity and helicity were discussed earlier for the particular cases, the analog of Ertel invariant has been so far unknown. It is found that on the basis of the new invariants introduced a wide set of high-order invariants can be constructed. The new invariants are relevant both for the deeper insight into the problem of the topological structure of the MHD flows as a whole and for the examination of the stability problems. The additional advantage of the proposed approach is that it enables one to deal with discontinuous flows, including all types of possible breaks.Comment: 16 page

Limit theorems for von Mises statistics of a measure preserving transformation

For a measure preserving transformation $T$ of a probability space $(X,\mathcal F,\mu)$ we investigate almost sure and distributional convergence of random variables of the form $$x \to \frac{1}{C_n} \sum_{i_1<n,...,i_d<n} f(T^{i_1}x,...,T^{i_d}x),\, n=1,2,...,$$ where $f$ (called the \emph{kernel}) is a function from $X^d$ to $\R$ and $C_1, C_2,...$ are appropriate normalizing constants. We observe that the above random variables are well defined and belong to $L_r(\mu)$ provided that the kernel is chosen from the projective tensor product $$L_p(X_1,\mathcal F_1, \mu_1) \otimes_{\pi}...\otimes_{\pi} L_p(X_d,\mathcal F_d, \mu_d)\subset L_p(\mu^d)$$ with $p=d\,r,\, r\ \in [1, \infty).$ We establish a form of the individual ergodic theorem for such sequences. Next, we give a martingale approximation argument to derive a central limit theorem in the non-degenerate case (in the sense of the classical Hoeffding's decomposition). Furthermore, for $d=2$ and a wide class of canonical kernels $f$ we also show that the convergence holds in distribution towards a quadratic form $\sum_{m=1}^{\infty} \lambda_m\eta^2_m$ in independent standard Gaussian variables $\eta_1, \eta_2,...$. Our results on the distributional convergence use a $T$--\,invariant filtration as a prerequisite and are derived from uni- and multivariate martingale approximations