The impact of electronic monitoring on fleet wide discarding of small cod in Scottish demersal fisheries

Acknowledgments The authors of this paper would like to acknowledge the fishers, fisheries inspectors, and video reviewers who participated in or supported the Scottish cod catch quota management scheme. Additionally, we thank two anonymous reviewers for their encouraging and insightful comments and suggestions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Effects of Phellinus weirii on plant community composition and succession of mature and old-growth Douglas-fir forests

Disease is often overlooked as a natural disturbance agent in plant communities. This study examines what effects, if any, a disease-mediated disturbance has on the plant community as a whole in old-growth and mature forests of western Oregon. Phellinus weirii (Murrill) Gilbertson (Family: Hymenochaetaceae) is a native root-rotting pathogen that has co-existed with its conifer hosts for thousands of years. E. weirii can infect the roots of nearly all conifers, infection eventually leading to mortality for Douglas-fir, mountain hemlock, and true fir species. As the pathogen grows slowly via root contacts and grafts of conifers, areas of mortality are left in its wake, areas commonly called infection centers. Herb, shrub, and tree species presence and percent abundance were noted inside and outside six infection centers located throughout the Cascade and Coast ranges. Douglas-fir is the major species experiencing mortality due to the disease in this region. The vegetation inside infected areas was compared to that found immediately adjacent to infection centers. A Multi-Response Permutation Procedure (MRPP), a non-parametric multivariate analysis of variance technique, was used to test for significant differences in the composition as a whole between the two areas of each site. An ordination technique, Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA), was used to examine if the effect the disease had on the plant community was a major factor underlying composition patterns. Common herb, shrub, and tree species, excluding Douglas-fir, were examined separately for significant differences in cover between the infected and non-infected areas for each site. Differences in the abundance of late-successional species and their regeneration between the two areas were tested in order to assess possible past and future impacts the disease had on succession in these forests. All six infection centers had significantly different overall species composition compared to the composition of the adjacent non-infected areas. The effect of the disease on the forest composition was a major agent influencing community composition patterns for the six areas. The responses of herb, shrub, and tree populations to disease presence was species-specific and varied across sites, responses varying especially between Cascade and Coast range sites for some species. Effects of the disease on overall plant diversity appear to be dependent on site characteristics. Though generalizations are often made about disease as a diversifying agent in communities, vascular plant diversity was not significantly enhanced by P. weirii. with the exception of one site. In terms of successional impacts, the succession rates may be accelerated in Cascade forests because the growth of late-succesional species is promoted within infection centers

Bis(N,N-diethyl­dithio­carbamato)(1,10-phenanthroline)cobalt(III) tetra­fluorido­borate

The cationic complex in the structure of the title compound, [Co(Et2NCS2)2(C12H8N2)]BF4, has a CoIII atom with a distorted octa­hedral coordination formed by four S atoms of two diethyl­dithio­carbamate and two N atoms of 1,10-phenanthroline ligands. The crystal structure features head-to-tail stacking of the phenanthroline ligands. The tetra­fluorido­borate anions are positioned in the channels between the cation stacks running along the a axis, and form weak C—H⋯F interactions

The response of foodborne pathogens to osmotic and desiccation stresses in the food chain

peer-reviewedIn combination with other strategies, hyperosmolarity and desiccation are frequently used by the food processing industry as a means to prevent bacterial proliferation, and particularly that of foodborne pathogens, in food products. However, it is increasingly observed that bacteria, including human pathogens, encode mechanisms to survive and withstand these stresses. This review provides an overview of the mechanisms employed by Salmonella spp., Shiga toxin producing E. coli, Cronobacter spp., Listeria monocytogenes and Campylobacter spp. to tolerate osmotic and desiccation stresses and identifies gaps in knowledge which need to be addressed to ensure the safety of low water activity and desiccated food products

Deep neural networks for analysis of fisheries surveillance video and automated monitoring of fish discards

We report on the development of a computer vision system that analyses video from CCTV systems installed on fishing trawlers for the purpose of monitoring and quantifying discarded fish catch. Our system is designed to operate in spite of the challenging computer vision problem posed by conditions on-board fishing trawlers. We describe the approaches developed for isolating and segmenting individual fish and for species classification. We present an analysis of the variability of manual species identification performed by expert human observers and contrast the performance of our species classifier against this benchmark. We also quantify the effect of the domain gap on the performance of modern deep neural network-based computer vision systems

Motion stereo at sea: Dense 3D reconstruction from image sequences monitoring conveyor systems on board fishing vessels

A system that reconstructs 3D models from a single camera monitoring fish transported on a conveyor system is investigated. Models are subsequently used for training a species classifier and for improving estimates of discarded biomass. It is demonstrated that a monocular camera, combined with a conveyor's linear motion produces a constrained form of multiview structure from motion, that allows the 3D scene to be reconstructed using a conventional stereo pipeline analogous to that of a binocular camera. Although motion stereo was proposed several decades ago, the present work is the first to compare the accuracy and precision of monocular and binocular stereo cameras monitoring conveyors and operationally deploy a system. The system exploits Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for foreground segmentation and stereo matching. Results from a laboratory model show that when the camera is mounted 750 mm above the conveyor, a median accuracy of <5 mm can be achieved with an equivalent baseline of 62 mm. The precision is largely limited by error in determining the equivalent baseline (i.e. distance travelled by the conveyor belt). When ArUco markers are placed on the belt, the inter quartile range (IQR) of error in z (depth) near the optical centre was found to be ±4 mm

Nutrition, environment and cardiovascular health (NESCAV): protocol of an inter-regional cross-sectional study.

peer reviewedBACKGROUND: Despite the remarkable technological progress in health care and treatment, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of premature death, prolonged hospitalization and disability in most European countries. In the population of the Greater Region (Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, Wallonia in Belgium, and Lorraine in France), the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and disease is among the highest in Europe, warranting the need for a better understanding of factors contributing to this pattern. In this context, the cross-border "Nutrition, Environment and Cardiovascular Health-NESCAV" project is initiated by an inter-regional multi-disciplinary consortium and supported by the INTERREG IV A program "Greater Region", 2007-2013, to fight synergically and harmoniously against this major public health problem. METHODS/DESIGN: The objectives of the three-year planned project are to assess, in a representative sample of 3000 randomly selected individuals living at the Greater Region, 1) the cardiovascular health and risk profile, 2) the association between the dietary habits and the cardiovascular risk, 3) the association of occupational and environmental pollution markers with the cardiovascular risk, 4) the knowledge, awareness and level of control of cardiovascular risk factors, 5) the potential gaps in the current primary prevention, and finally, to address evidence-based recommendations enabling the development of inter-regional guidance to help policy-makers and health care workers for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. DISCUSSION: The findings will provide tools that may enable the Greater Region's decision-makers and health professionals to implement targeted and cost-effective prevention strategies

A pilot study evaluating the use of ABCD2 score in pre-hospital assessment of patients with suspected transient ischaemic attack: experience and lessons learned

Background: Suspected transient ischaemic attack (TIA) is a common presentation to emergency medical services (EMS) in the United Kingdom (UK). Several EMS systems have adopted the ABCD2 score to aid pre-hospital risk stratification and decision-making on patient disposition, such as direct referral to an Emergency Department or specialist TIA clinic. However, the ABCD2 score, developed for hospital use, has not been validated for use in the pre-hospital context of EMS care. Methods: We conducted a pilot study to assess eligibility criteria, recruitment rates, protocol compliance, consent and follow-up procedures to inform the development of a definitive study to validate the ABCD2 tool in pre-hospital evaluation of patients with suspected TIA. Results: From 1st May–1st September 2013, nine patients with an EMS suspected diagnosis of TIA had the TIA diagnosis later confirmed by a specialist from five participating sites. This recruitment rate is comparable to stroke trials in the EMS setting. Bureaucratic obstacles and duplication of approval processes across participating sites took 13 months to resolve before recruitment commenced. Due to the initial difficulty in recruitment, a substantial amendment was approved to modify inclusion criteria, allowing patients with atrial fibrillation and/or taking anticoagulant therapy to participate in the study. Conclusions: It is possible to identify, recruit and follow up patients with suspected TIA in the EMS setting. Training large numbers of EMS staff is required as exposure to TIA patients is infrequent. Significant insight was gained into the complexity of NHS research governance mechanisms in the UK. This knowledge will facilitate the planning of a future adequately powered study to validate the ABCD2 tool in a pre-hospital setting

Patterns and mechanisms of conspecific and heterospecific interactions in a dry perennial grassland

1. Models of local stable coexistence require negative feedbacks, i.e. intraspecific interactions must be more negative than interspecific interactions. However, most competition experiments, often done in the glasshouse, have found evidence for competitive hierarchies. Measurement of interactions under realistic field conditions is necessary to assess their contribution to community dynamics, and explicit measurement of intermediaries thought to be important in interactions may allow studies to account for any variation in experimental results. 2. In this study, we compare conspecific and heterospecific interactions in a field experiment in a dry sand prairie in Michigan. We study the four dominant species at two different stages, germination and adult growth. Using seed addition and adult transplant experiments, we ask whether plants perform best in natural field monocultures of conspecifics, heterospecifics or no neighbour plots. We also measure abiotic environmental characteristics associated with each neighbourhood type and test whether performance can be explained by environmental effects. We hypothesize that plants will create competitive hierarchies because our experimental design is similar to classic competition experiments. 3. Neighbour species created consistent hierarchies in their effects on germination of all four target species, which is likely due to light limitation. However, interestingly, adult plant biomass for two of the three species (one species did not survive) was lower in conspecific monocultures compared to heterospecific or no neighbour plots, thus producing negative feedbacks. For two species, the effects of neighbours on adult growth are likely due to reduction of light and soil nitrate; for the third, however, resources could not explain the pattern that conspecific interactions were more negative than heterospecific. 4. Synthesis. These results suggest that patterns in the relative strength of conspecific and heterospecific competition depend on life-history stage. Moreover, resource uptake could explain some, but not all, of the interactions among species, suggesting that other factors such as microbial communities or other forms of niche partitioning may play a role and that field experiments are necessary to gauge their relative importance.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79241/1/j.1365-2745.2010.01734.x.pd