Status of fisheries of Lakshadweep

The Union Territory of Lakshadweep (08 00'N and 12 30'N latitudes and 71 00'E and 74 00'E longitudes), consisting of eleven inhabited and 25 uninhabited islands, is scattered in the Arabian Sea at about 200- 400 km from the Malabar Coast.Lakshadweep sea is rich in fishery resources such as the tunas, billfishes Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&E Ser., No. 187, 2006 2 pelagic sharks etc., and the other groups of food fishes, live baits and ornamental fishes.The estimated marine fishery resources potential in the Lakshadweep waters are about 63,000 to 1,40,000 tonnes of various groups of fish, whereas the present annual production is around 10,000 t (10% of the potential)

Status report on the tuna fishery in India, with particular reference to longtail tuna, Thunnus tonggol

The status of the tuna fishery in India and the structure of the stock in inshore waters of the Indian EEZ have received attention in the recent past (James and Pillai, 1990; James, 1991; Pillai, 1991; Pillai, 1993; James et al., 1993a, b; James and Pillai, 1993a, b). This paper provides a brief up-date of the current status of the tuna fishery in India, with particular reference to longtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol)

A quality and popularity based ranking method for research datasets

Research outputs are the final products in the scientific research process and their quality is progressively being evaluated by various methods such as altmetrics, bibliometrics, impact factors and citation count etc. However, a significant component of scientific research involves creating/collecting/curating research datasets and globally, funding agencies and governments are mandating an open access policy on research datasets. Though repositories exist to store the datasets, there is no metricised guidance, indicating the quality of datasets for researchers wishing to reuse. We propose a novel method for ranking and visualising research datasets based on their quality and popularity, constructed through a normalised citation count since the year of origin, total cites and the impact factor of the journals which publish the articles citing the dataset. Additionally, we present the process flow for a proposed digital information system for the access of datasets according to their discipline and rank based on the variables. The proposed method is expected to assist researchers, globally, to choose the right datasets for their research, encourage researchers to share their datasets and promote interdisciplinary research

Extinction of cue-evoked food seeking recruits a GABAergic interneuron ensemble in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex of mice

Animals must quickly adapt food-seeking strategies to locate nutrient sources in dynamically changing environments. Learned associations between food and environmental cues that predict its availability promote food-seeking behaviors. However, when such cues cease to predict food availability, animals undergo 'extinction' learning, resulting in the inhibition of food-seeking responses. Repeatedly activated sets of neurons, or 'neuronal ensembles', in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) are recruited following appetitive conditioning and undergo physiological adaptations thought to encode cue-reward associations. However, little is known about how the recruitment and intrinsic excitability of such dmPFC ensembles are modulated by extinction learning. Here, we used in vivo 2-Photon imaging in male Fos-GFP mice that express green fluorescent protein (GFP) in recently behaviorally-activated neurons to determine the recruitment of activated pyramidal and GABAergic interneuron mPFC ensembles during extinction. During extinction, we revealed a persistent activation of a subset of interneurons which emerged from a wider population of interneurons activated during the initial extinction session. This activation pattern was not observed in pyramidal cells, and extinction learning did not modulate the excitability properties of activated neurons. Moreover, extinction learning reduced the likelihood of reactivation of pyramidal cells activated during the initial extinction session. Our findings illuminate novel neuronal activation patterns in the dmPFC underlying extinction of food-seeking, and in particular, highlight an important role for interneuron ensembles in this inhibitory form of learning

Fishery and biology of yellowfin tuna occurring in the coastal fishery in Indian seas

In the recently convened Workshop on "Stock assessment of yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean" (FAO/IPTP, 1991) the present status of the fishery, biology and stock structure of yellawfiil tuna taken by different countries bordering the Indian Ocean have been discussed, and recommednations on the development of the fishery for this species made

Huntington disease-like phenotype in a patient with ANO3 mutation

A 71-year-old previously well white British female developed progressive involuntary tongue movements over one year, resulting in eating difficulty and 10 kg weight loss. She had also noted involuntary perioral, facial and distal limb movements beginning 18 months earlier. These had progressively worsened. In the 3 years prior to presentation, she reported subjective memory decline, word finding difficulty and depressed mood, which improved with mirtazapine 30 mg once daily. She had no history of neuroleptic exposure. Her brother had died aged 40 years, following years of mental illness and substance abuse. She was estranged from her father, who was said to have had ‘behavioural problems’. Her paternal grandmother and maternal aunt had Parkinson's disease

Particle physics experiments at JLC

This article does not have an abstract

Measuring the impact of research: lessons from the UK’s Research Excellence Framework 2014

Impactful academic research plays a stellar role in society, pressing to ask the question of how one measures the impact created by different areas of academic research. Measuring the societal, cultural, economic and scientific impact of research is currently the priority of the National Science Foundation, European Commission and several research funding agencies. The recently concluded United Kingdom’s national research quality exercise, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, which piloted impact assessment as part of the overall evaluation offers a lens to view how impact of research in different disciplines can be measured. Overall research quality was assessed through quality of outputs, ‘impact’ and research environment. We performed two studies using the REF 2014 as a case study. The first study on 363 Impact Case Studies (ICSs) submitted in 5 research areas (UoAs) reveals that, in general, the impact scores were constructed upon a combination of factors i.e. quantity of quartile-one (Q1) publications, quantity and value of grants/income, number of researchers stated in the ICSs, spin-offs created, discoveries/patents and presentation of esteem data, informing researchers/ academics of the factors to consider in order to achieve a better impact score in research impact assessments. However, there were differences among disciplines in terms of the role played by the factors in achieving their overall scores for the ICSs. The outcome of this study is thus a set of impact indicators, and their relationship with the overall score of impact of research in different disciplines as determined in REF2014, which would in the first instance provide some answers to impact measures that would be useful for researchers in different disciplines. The second study extracts the general themes of impact reported by universities by performing a word frequency analysis in all the ICSs submitted in the five chosen research areas, which were substantially varied owing to their fields

Indian tuna fishery - production trend during yesteryears and scope for the future

Fishery for tuna and tuna like fishes in the country has been in vogue from time immemorial and presently involves fishery by coastal based fleets of varying specifications with different craft-gear combinations and longline fishery by large oceanic fishing vessels. The former undertakes short duration fishing trips and exploit mainly surface tunas in the outer shelf and adjacent oceanic waters. The tuna landings though nominal during 1950-2005, registered a continuous increase over the years from a minimum of 848 t (1951) to 46,334 t (2000). With the introduction of targeted fishing for oceanic tunas during 2005-‘06, the landings improved and reached the maximum of 129,801 t in 2008. The fishery was supported by nine species, five coastal/neritic species and four oceanic species. Coastal tunas formed 57% of the tuna catch during 2006-’10 and was represented by the little tuna (Euthynnus affinis), frigate tuna (Auxis thazard), bullet tuna (Auxis rochei), longtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol) and bonito (Sarda orientalis). The oceanic species, which formed 43% of tuna catch, were yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares), skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), dogtooth tuna (Gymnosarda unicolor) and bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus). Information collected from different sources suggested that longliners operating in Indian EEZ and adjacent international waters caught around 87,000 t of tuna annually during 2006-'10. Catch was supported by three species dominated by yellowfin tuna and small proportion of big-eye and dogtooth tuna. Since fishery by coastal based units restricted to small areas and share of the catch by longliners from EEZ are not clearly known, systematic assessment of tuna stock in Indian EEZ is very difficult. However, the evaluation of the fishery scenario indicated only limited scope for improving tuna production from certain areas of coastal waters; whereas enormous scope remain for increasing tuna production from the oceanic waters of EEZ. However, since tunas being straddling resources shared by several nations, exploitation at one area will influence the fishery in other areas