The Pacific salmon explorer: a data driven look at salmon populations and their habitats

The lack of a centralized, standardized, and easily accessible repository of information on the state of natural resources, and threats to them, can undermine efforts to make informed, transparent, and evidenced-based management and conservation decisions. This is the case with Pacific salmon in British Columbia (BC), where a lack of information on the current status of salmon population and their habitats is undermining public confidence in the ability of government agencies to sustainability manage Pacific salmon populations. In an effort to provide broader public access to salmon datasets, the Pacific Salmon Foundation embarked on a major initiative to synthesize the best available information on Pacific salmon populations and their freshwater habitats throughout northern and central BC. Drawing upon these experiences, we illustrate how broadly available government datasets can be used to monitor and assess the status of salmon populations and their habitats. We show how large public datasets can help to provide information on a suite of indicators of salmon population condition including estimates of freshwater production, spawner abundance, harvest, trends in abundance, run-timing, population productivity, and assessments of biological status. This biological information is coupled with remote-sensed data that is used to quantify cumulative pressures on freshwater salmon habitats. All of this information is made available to the public through the Pacific Salmon Explorer (www.salmonexplorer.ca), an online data visualization tool that allows users to explore salmon-related information through a series of interactive maps and figures as well as download source datasets. While initially developed for northern and central BC, the PSF is now scaling the Pacific Salmon Explorer up to all salmon-bearing watersheds in BC, including those that enter into the Salish Sea. Our novel and scalable approach provides a model for how large quantities of disparate information can be compiled, analyzed, and communicated to decision-makers and the public

Change in abdominal, but not femoral subcutaneous fat CT-radiodensity is associated with improved metabolic profile after bariatric surgery

Background and aims: Computed tomography (CT)-derived adipose tissue radiodensity represents a potential noninvasive surrogate marker for lipid deposition and obesity-related metabolic disease risk. We studied the effects of bariatric surgery on CT-derived adipose radiodensities in abdominal and femoral areas and their relationships to circulating metabolites in morbidly obese patients. Methods and results: We examined 23 morbidly obese women who underwent CT imaging before and 6 months after bariatric surgery. Fifteen healthy non-obese women served as controls. Radiodensities of the abdominal subcutaneous (SAT) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and the femoral SAT, adipose tissue masses were measured in all participants. Circulating metabolites were measured by NMR. At baseline, radiodensities of abdominal fat depots were lower in the obese patients as compared to the controls. Surprisingly, radiodensity of femoral SAT was higher in the obese as compared to the controls. In the abdominal SAT depot, radiodensity strongly correlated with SAT mass (r =-0.72, p < 0.001). After surgery, the radiodensities of abdominal fat increased significantly (both p < 0.01), while femoral SAT radio density remained unchanged. Circulating ApoB/ApoA-I, leucine, valine, and GlycA decreased, while glycine levels significantly increased as compared to pre-surgical values (all p < 0.05). The increase in abdominal fat radiodensity correlated negatively with the decreased levels of ApoB/ApoA-I ratio, leucine and GlycA (all p < 0.05). The increase in abdominal SAT density was significantly correlated with the decrease in the fat depot mass (r =-0.66, p = 0.002).Conclusion: Higher lipid content in abdominal fat depots, and lower content in femoral subcutaneous fat, constitute prominent pathophysiological features in morbid obesity. Further studies are needed to clarify the role of non-abdominal subcutaneous fat in the pathogenesis of obesity. Clinical trial registration number: NCT01373892. (C) 2020 The Italian Diabetes Society, the Italian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, the Italian Society of Human Nutrition and the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University. Published by Elsevier B.V

Innovation by Experimenting in Public Services

Peer reviewe

Lex Maritima in a changing world: development and prospect of rules governing carriage of goods by sea

This chapter examines the attempts to unifying law governing carriage of goods by sea and the background to these attempts over the past hundred years or so. It finds that a repetition of the current mode of negotiating static conventions will not unify these rules. Moreover, from historic and legal perspectives, the attempts to unify the international carriage of goods by sea regimes in the past century have remained transitional. The active players have shifted from private entrepreneurs to government delegates. This research probes into the new trade practice for the shipping industry in the twenty-first century and argues that new ‘landscape’ calls for innovative modifications of the conventional approach to unifying carriage of goods by sea rules. This research also forecasts the prospects of the Rotterdam Rules and discusses several countries’ current attitudes, including the UK, the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries and, particularly, the USA

Digital programs for obtaining the system frequency responses from time responses for impulse, step or arbitrary inputs (U)

This report addresses the digital programs for obtaining the system frequency responses from time responses for impulse, step or arbitrary inputs

Genetic methods for determining subspecies composition of bean goose harvests

Session abstract A2.3201