The Effects of Fish Trap Mesh Size on Reef Fish Catch off Southeastern Florida

Catch and mesh selectivity of wire-meshed fish traps were tested for eleven different mesh sizes ranging from 13 X 13 mm (0.5 x 0.5") to 76 x 152 mm (3 X 6"). A total of 1,810 fish (757 kg) representing 85 species and 28 families were captured during 330 trap hauls off southeastern Florida from December 1986 to July 1988. Mesh size significantly affected catches. The 1.5" hexagonal mesh caught the most fish by number, weight, and value. Catches tended to decline as meshes got smaller or larger. Individual fish size increased with larger meshes. Laboratory mesh retention experiments showed relationships between mesh shape and size and individual retention for snapper (Lutjanidae), grouper (Serranidae), jack (Carangidae), porgy (Sparidae), and surgeonfish (Acanthuridae). These relationships may be used to predict the effect of mesh sizes on catch rates. Because mesh size and shape greatly influenced catchability, regulating mesh size may provide a useful basis for managing the commercial trap fishery

Recreational Fisheries in Biscayne National Park, Florida, 1976–19

Recreational creel survey data from 28,923 intercepts collected from Biscayne National Park, Florida and surrounding waters were analyzed for January 1976 through July 1991, prior to disruptions caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. A total of 261,268 fish and shellfish representing 170 species or higher taxa were recorded. The average trip landed 9.03 fish and/or shellfish. Mean annual landings per angler were 4.77 fish/angler/trip (from 3.8 in 1991 to 5.83 in 1981) and dropped significantly for each of the 2 years following Florida's adoption of mutiple new minimum size limits in 1985 and 1990. The relative contribution to total numerical landings by recreational party type were: skilled anglers (34.0%), food (19.8%), family (14.5%), novice (11.5%), spearfishing (10.3%), lobstering (9.6%), and other (0.3%). FIve species or higher taxa accounted for more than 50% of total landings by number: white grunt, Haemulon plumieri, 15.8%; spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, (10.6%; gray snapper, Lutjanus griseus, 10.6%; unidentified grunts, Haemulon spp., 7.3%; and dolphin, Coryphaena hippurus, 6.6%. An average of 4.39 fish or shellfish were reported released per trip. Five taxa accounted for 67% of all releases. Lobster divers reported the highest average release rate (5.73 per trip) and spearfishing the lowest (0.70 per trip). The ratio of releases to landings was 0.49:1 for all taxa, but ranged from 0.03:1 for dolphin to 1.19:1 for unidentified grunts. Spearfishing accounted for 12.0% of the total fishing trips sampled but only 10.3% of the total number organisms landed and 7.6% of all organisms caught. Hogfish, Lachnolaimus maximus, accounted for 49% if total spearfishing landings (13,286 of 27,015) and 84.3% of total 15,762 hogfish landed

Seeing the way: visual sociology and the distance runner's perspective

Employing visual and autoethnographic data from a two‐year research project on distance runners, this article seeks to examine the activity of seeing in relation to the activity of distance running. One of its methodological aims is to develop the linkage between visual and autoethnographic data in combining an observation‐based narrative and sociological analysis with photographs. This combination aims to convey to the reader not only some of the specific subcultural knowledge and particular ways of seeing, but also something of the runner's embodied feelings and experience of momentum en route. Via the combination of narrative and photographs we seek a more effective way of communicating just how distance runners see and experience their training terrain. The importance of subjecting mundane everyday practices to detailed sociological analysis has been highlighted by many sociologists, including those of an ethnomethodological perspective. Indeed, without the competence of social actors in accomplishing these mundane, routine understandings and practices, it is argued, there would in fact be no social order

A Geologic Play Book for Utica Shale Appalachian Basin Exploration

This “Geologic Play Book for Utica Shale Appalachian Basin Exploration” (hereafter referred to as the “Utica Shale Play Book Study” or simply “Study”) represents the results of a two-year research effort by workers in five different states with the financial support of fifteen oil and gas industry partners. The Study was made possible through a coordinated effort between the Appalachian Basin Oil & Natural Gas Research Consortium (AONGRC) and the West Virginia University Shale Research, Education, Policy and Economic Development Center

Accountability in the East Asian economic miracle, crisis and recovery

Despite claims that accountability enables 'good governance' proper, its specific origins, character and limitations are not yet fully clear. In order to explicate the nature of accountability better this paper will, therefore, formulate and apply its own comparative framework to the case of the East Asian economic miracle, crisis and recovery in particular. In so doing it finds that, even when accountability emerged as a mid-crisis issue that was dramatically reconfigured for any due recovery later, it was not itself then sufficiently explicated for all the implications and consequences to be realized fully. Once it is explicated more fully, however, the further implications and consequences of changing accountability for economic governance question precisely what is to be expected from accountability per se

Risk of COVID-19-related death among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma prescribed inhaled corticosteroids: an observational cohort study using the OpenSAFELY platform

BACKGROUND: Early descriptions of patients admitted to hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic showed a lower prevalence of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than would be expected for an acute respiratory disease like COVID-19, leading to speculation that inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) might protect against infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or the development of serious sequelae. We assessed the association between ICS and COVID-19-related death among people with COPD or asthma using linked electronic health records (EHRs) in England, UK. METHODS: In this observational study, we analysed patient-level data for people with COPD or asthma from primary care EHRs linked with death data from the Office of National Statistics using the OpenSAFELY platform. The index date (start of follow-up) for both cohorts was March 1, 2020; follow-up lasted until May 6, 2020. For the COPD cohort, individuals were eligible if they were aged 35 years or older, had COPD, were a current or former smoker, and were prescribed an ICS or long-acting β agonist plus long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LABA-LAMA) as combination therapy within the 4 months before the index date. For the asthma cohort, individuals were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older, had been diagnosed with asthma within 3 years of the index date, and were prescribed an ICS or short-acting β agonist (SABA) only within the 4 months before the index date. We compared the outcome of COVID-19-related death between people prescribed an ICS and those prescribed alternative respiratory medications: ICSs versus LABA-LAMA for the COPD cohort, and low-dose or medium-dose and high-dose ICSs versus SABAs only in the asthma cohort. We used Cox regression models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for the association between exposure categories and the outcome in each population, adjusted for age, sex, and all other prespecified covariates. We calculated e-values to quantify the effect of unmeasured confounding on our results. FINDINGS: We identified 148 557 people with COPD and 818 490 people with asthma who were given relevant respiratory medications in the 4 months before the index date. People with COPD who were prescribed ICSs were at increased risk of COVID-19-related death compared with those prescribed LABA-LAMA combinations (adjusted HR 1·39 [95% CI 1·10-1·76]). Compared with those prescribed SABAs only, people with asthma who were prescribed high-dose ICS were at an increased risk of death (1·55 [1·10-2·18]), whereas those given a low or medium dose were not (1·14 [0·85-1·54]). Sensitivity analyses showed that the apparent harmful association we observed could be explained by relatively small health differences between people prescribed ICS and those not prescribed ICS that were not recorded in the database (e value lower 95% CI 1·43). INTERPRETATION: Our results do not support a major role for regular ICS use in protecting against COVID-19-related death among people with asthma or COPD. Observed increased risks of COVID-19-related death can be plausibly explained by unmeasured confounding due to disease severity. FUNDING: UK Medical Research Council

POPcorn: An Online Resource Providing Access to Distributed and Diverse Maize Project Data

The purpose of the online resource presented here, POPcorn (Project Portal for corn), is to enhance accessibility of maize genetic and genomic resources for plant biologists. Currently, many online locations are difficult to find, some are best searched independently, and individual project websites often degrade over time—sometimes disappearing entirely. The POPcorn site makes available (1) a centralized, web-accessible resource to search and browse descriptions of ongoing maize genomics projects, (2) a single, stand-alone tool that uses web Services and minimal data warehousing to search for sequence matches in online resources of diverse offsite projects, and (3) a set of tools that enables researchers to migrate their data to the long-term model organism database for maize genetic and genomic information: MaizeGDB. Examples demonstrating POPcorn's utility are provided herein