The effects of the trawl fishery on the stock of pink snapper, Pagrus auratus, in Denham Sound, Shark Bay

Snapper stocks in the inner gulfs of Shark Bay are in a depleted condition, both in trawled and non-trawled areas, with the main factor contributing to the depletion considered to be recreational fishing for adult snapper, including some mortality of undersized snapper returned to the water. The commercial prawn trawl fishery catches many small fish species, including small juvenile pink snapper, as part of its unintended bycatch. Some members of the local community believe that mortality of juvenile snapper due to trawling has also been a significant factor in depletion of the adult stock in Denham Sound, Shark Bay. While the Department of Fisheries has undertaken extensive research on snapper and prawn fisheries including counting and measuring juvenile snapper in many research trawl surveys since the 1970s and observed commercial trawls since the 1990s, this information alone was insufficient for an assessment on the extent to which snapper stocks in Denham Sound are being affected by the trawl fishery. This bulletin provides the additional detailed information required and combines it with a range of historical data to complete a comprehensive assessment

Assessment of E-textbook Usage in a Large Public Speaking Program

This study examined student usage of an e-textbook in a large multi-section basic pubic speaking course that fulfills the oral communication general education requirement at a large state university in the Midwest. The results collected from students surveys (n=598) indicated that they are not yet using e-textbooks across other university classes, they prefer printed textbooks to e-textbooks, they perceive advantages of e-textbooks to be cost, weight, ability to quickly find topics and conveniences, while they perceive advantages of printed textbooks to be the ability to highlight and take notes, ease of reading, and keeping the printed text-book for future reference. When it comes to e-textbook reading, they prefer computers to smaller computing devices like iPads, iPods, cellular phones or other electronic readers, and only 18% of the students at this public university reported access to an electronic tablet and only 16% had access to an e-reader. Students preferred using an e-textbook to a printed textbook when they had prior experience reading an e-book. In general, students report spending less than one hour per week reading the course e-textbook

A faster tree-decomposition based algorithm for counting linear extensions

We consider the problem of counting the linear extensions of an n-element poset whose cover graph has treewidth at most t. We show that the problem can be solved in time Õ(nt+3), where Õ suppresses logarithmic factors. Our algorithm is based on fast multiplication of multivariate polynomials, and so differs radically from a previous Õ(nt+4)-time inclusion–exclusion algorithm. We also investigate the algorithm from a practical point of view. We observe that the running time is not well characterized by the parameters n and t alone, fixing of which leaves large variance in running times due to uncontrolled features of the selected optimal-width tree decomposition. For selecting an efficient tree decomposition we adopt the method of empirical hardness models, and show that it typically enables picking a tree decomposition that is significantly more efficient than a random optimal-width tree decomposition. © Kustaa Kangas, Mikko Koivisto, and Sami Salonen; licensed under Creative Commons License CC-BY.Peer reviewe

Speech Center Support Services, the Basic Course, and Oral Communication Assessment

This study examines the role a speech center plays in supporting university-wide oral communication assessment. Specifically, this study queries student usage of speech center support services and perceived changes in public speaking anxiety, public speaking confidence, and public speaking skills. The findings indicate that students who report more visits to the speech center also perceive that using the speech center helped reduce their speech anxiety and increase their confidence in public speaking. In addition, those who report it “helpful” to self-evaluate recordings of their in-class speeches also report a greater reduction in speech anxiety, a greater increase in confidence, and a greater increase in public speaking skills over the course of the semester. Implications for basic course assessment programs and speech centers are discussed

A Small Interstellar Probe to the Heliospheric Boundary and Interstellar Space

The Small Interstellar Probe m1ss1on would be designed to cross the solar wind termination shock and the heliopause, and make a significant penetration into nearby interstellar space. The principal scientific objectives of this mission would be to explore the structure of the heliosphere, to investigate its interaction with the interstellar medium, and to explore the nature of the interstellar medium itself. These studies would be carried out by a ~200 kg spacecraft carrying a scientific payload designed to make comprehensive, in situ measurements of both heliospheric and interstellar plasma, fields, energetic particles, gas, and dust. New trajectory calculations indicate significantly improved performance over earlier studies with larger spacecraft, including spacecraft velocities ranging from -6 to -14 AU/yr., depending on trajectory and launch vehicle

Children’s social orientations as creative processes in early childhood education and care

The purpose of this article is to study children’s social orientations as creative processes in early childhood education and care (ECEC). In this article, we focus on how children’s creative thinking abilities relate to children’s social orientations in interactive situations in ECEC. We study children’s creative thinking abilities with the Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement [TCAM] -test and children’s social orientations with the Child observation instrument of Reunamo (2007). Two hundred and eighty children in 23 ECEC institutions participated in the research. There were altogether eight randomly selected days for the observation between January and May 2015. The TCAM-test was conducted by teachers for their own group. The connections between the TCAM-test and the Child observation instrument were studied with partial correlations controlling children’s age. The results showed that children’s creative thinking abilities were associated positively with participative social orientation. An adaptive and withdrawn orientation had negative correlations with creative thinking abilities.Peer reviewe

Children’s social orientations as creative processes in early childhood education and care

The purpose of this article is to study children’s social orientations as creative processes in early childhood education and care (ECEC). In this article, we focus on how children’s creative thinking abilities relate to children’s social orientations in interactive situations in ECEC. We study children’s creative thinking abilities with the Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement [TCAM] -test and children’s social orientations with the Child observation instrument of Reunamo (2007). Two hundred and eighty children in 23 ECEC institutions participated in the research. There were altogether eight randomly selected days for the observation between January and May 2015. The TCAM-test was conducted by teachers for their own group. The connections between the TCAM-test and the Child observation instrument were studied with partial correlations controlling children’s age. The results showed that children’s creative thinking abilities were associated positively with participative social orientation. An adaptive and withdrawn orientation had negative correlations with creative thinking abilities.Peer reviewe