The application of the sustainable livelihood approach to small scale-fisheries: The case of mud crab Scylla serrata in South west India

The sustainable livelihood approach is an analytical framework that helps identifying the assets that local communities rely on, the risks they are subjected to, organisations and institutions influence their daily lives and the strategies they undertake. This is a valuable approach in small-scale fisheries management as artisanal fisheries are exposed to uncertainty in terms of supply and demand, and fishing activities usually are influenced by social and institutional factors. However, in spite of its usefulness and the fact that this approach has been previously used in projects targeting small-scale fisher communities, it is still not widely applied to small-scale fisheries. In this study we applied the sustainable livelihood approach as an analytical tool to assess the potential of the mud crab Scylla serrata as a sustainable livelihood resource for the southwest Indian states such as Karnataka. As fishers worldwide face continuous pressure from industrial fishing fleets and decreased fish stocks and their productivity, we also identified what could be the potential barriers to small-scale mud crab farming for communities that are already are involved in mud crab fishing. Data were collected and analysed from a semi-structured questionnaire, two focus group discussions and key informant interviews conducted in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka. The results indicated that though mud crab is perceived as a good source of income in this area, at present it is not recognised as a steady source of income due to the unpredictable fishery catches. Respondents were aware of mud crab farming yet stated the lack of land and financial resources as the main barriers and only the minority expressed any interest in undertaking such activity. The sustainable livelihood approach proved to be a valuable research tool for identifying matters of concern for local communities regarding their source of livelihoods and barriers to small-scale aquaculture.</p

Transporting ideas between marine and social sciences: experiences from interdisciplinary research programs.

The oceans comprise 70% of the surface area of our planet, contain some of the world’s richest natural resources and are one of the most significant drivers of global climate patterns. As the marine environment continues to increase in importance as both an essential resource reservoir and facilitator of global change, it is apparent that to find long-term sustainable solutions for our use of the sea and its resources and thus to engage in a sustainable blue economy, an integrated interdisciplinary approach is needed. As a result, interdisciplinary working is proliferating. We report here our experiences of forming interdisciplinary teams (marine ecologists, ecophysiologists, social scientists, environmental economists and environmental law specialists) to answer questions pertaining to the effects of anthropogenic-driven global change on the sustainability of resource use from the marine environment, and thus to transport ideas outwards from disciplinary confines. We use a framework derived from the literature on interdisciplinarity to enable us to explore processes of knowledge integration in two ongoing research projects, based on analyses of the purpose, form and degree of knowledge integration within each project. These teams were initially focused around a graduate program, explicitly designed for interdisciplinary training across the natural and social sciences, at the Gothenburg Centre for Marine Research at the University of Gothenburg, thus allowing us to reflect on our own experiences within the context of other multi-national, interdisciplinary graduate training and associated research programs

A discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies: The conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of trapped populations

First mooted in 2011, the concept of Trapped Populations referring to people unable to move from environmentally high-risk areas broadened the study of human responses to environmental change. While a seemingly straightforward concept, the underlying discourses around the reasons for being ‘trapped’, and the language describing the concept have profound influences on the way in which policy and practice approaches the needs of populations at risk from environmental stresses and shocks. In this article, we apply a Critical Discourse Analysis to the academic literature on the subject to reveal some of the assumptions implicit within discussing ‘trapped’ populations. The analysis reveals a dominant school of thought that assisted migration, relocation, and resettlement in the face of climate change are potentially effective adaptation strategies along a gradient of migrant agency and governance

Measurement and interpretation of same-sign W boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of fducial and diferential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign W-boson pair in association with two jets (W±W±jj) using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity diference. The measured fducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive W±W±jj production are 2.92 ± 0.22 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.)fb and 3.38±0.22 (stat.)±0.19 (syst.)fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confdence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons H±± that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign W boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an H±± mass near 450 GeV, with a global signifcance of 2.5 standard deviations

Combination of searches for heavy spin-1 resonances using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A combination of searches for new heavy spin-1 resonances decaying into different pairings of W, Z, or Higgs bosons, as well as directly into leptons or quarks, is presented. The data sample used corresponds to 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at = 13 TeV collected during 2015–2018 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Analyses selecting quark pairs (qq, bb, , and tb) or third-generation leptons (τν and ττ) are included in this kind of combination for the first time. A simplified model predicting a spin-1 heavy vector-boson triplet is used. Cross-section limits are set at the 95% confidence level and are compared with predictions for the benchmark model. These limits are also expressed in terms of constraints on couplings of the heavy vector-boson triplet to quarks, leptons, and the Higgs boson. The complementarity of the various analyses increases the sensitivity to new physics, and the resulting constraints are stronger than those from any individual analysis considered. The data exclude a heavy vector-boson triplet with mass below 5.8 TeV in a weakly coupled scenario, below 4.4 TeV in a strongly coupled scenario, and up to 1.5 TeV in the case of production via vector-boson fusion

Measurements of Higgs bosons decaying to bottom quarks from vector boson fusion production with the ATLAS experiment at √=13TeV

The paper presents a measurement of the Standard Model Higgs Boson decaying to b-quark pairs in the vector boson fusion (VBF) production mode. A sample corresponding to 126 fb−1 of s√=13TeV proton–proton collision data, collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, is analyzed utilizing an adversarial neural network for event classification. The signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured signal yield to that predicted by the Standard Model for VBF Higgs production, is measured to be 0.95+0.38−0.36 , corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.8) standard deviations from the background only hypothesis. The results are additionally combined with an analysis of Higgs bosons decaying to b-quarks, produced via VBF in association with a photon

Measurements of differential cross-sections in top-quark pair events with a high transverse momentum top quark and limits on beyond the Standard Model contributions to top-quark pair production with the ATLAS detector at √s = 13 TeV

Cross-section measurements of top-quark pair production where the hadronically decaying top quark has transverse momentum greater than 355 GeV and the other top quark decays into ℓνb are presented using 139 fb−1 of data collected by the ATLAS experiment during proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The fiducial cross-section at s = 13 TeV is measured to be σ = 1.267 ± 0.005 ± 0.053 pb, where the uncertainties reflect the limited number of data events and the systematic uncertainties, giving a total uncertainty of 4.2%. The cross-section is measured differentially as a function of variables characterising the tt¯ system and additional radiation in the events. The results are compared with various Monte Carlo generators, including comparisons where the generators are reweighted to match a parton-level calculation at next-to-next-to-leading order. The reweighting improves the agreement between data and theory. The measured distribution of the top-quark transverse momentum is used to search for new physics in the context of the effective field theory framework. No significant deviation from the Standard Model is observed and limits are set on the Wilson coefficients of the dimension-six operators OtG and Otq(8), where the limits on the latter are the most stringent to date. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Muon reconstruction and identification efficiency in ATLAS using the full Run 2 pp collision data set at \sqrt{s}=13 TeV

This article documents the muon reconstruction and identification efficiency obtained by the ATLAS experiment for 139 \hbox {fb}^{-1} of pp collision data at \sqrt{s}=13 TeV collected between 2015 and 2018 during Run 2 of the LHC. The increased instantaneous luminosity delivered by the LHC over this period required a reoptimisation of the criteria for the identification of prompt muons. Improved and newly developed algorithms were deployed to preserve high muon identification efficiency with a low misidentification rate and good momentum resolution. The availability of large samples of Z\rightarrow \mu \mu and J/\psi \rightarrow \mu \mu decays, and the minimisation of systematic uncertainties, allows the efficiencies of criteria for muon identification, primary vertex association, and isolation to be measured with an accuracy at the per-mille level in the bulk of the phase space, and up to the percent level in complex kinematic configurations. Excellent performance is achieved over a range of transverse momenta from 3 GeV to several hundred GeV, and across the full muon detector acceptance of |\eta |<2.7

Search for bottom-squark pair production in pp collision events at √s=13 TeV with hadronically decaying τ-leptons, b-jets, and missing transverse momentum using the ATLAS detector

A search for pair production of bottom squarks in events with hadronically decaying τ -leptons, b -tagged jets, and large missing transverse momentum is presented. The analyzed dataset is based on proton-proton collisions at √ s = 13     TeV delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded by the ATLAS detector from 2015 to 2018, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139     fb − 1 . The observed data are compatible with the expected Standard Model background. Results are interpreted in a simplified model where each bottom squark is assumed to decay into the second-lightest neutralino ˜ χ 0 2 and a bottom quark, with ˜ χ 0 2 decaying into a Higgs boson and the lightest neutralino ˜ χ 0 1 . The search focuses on final states where at least one Higgs boson decays into a pair of hadronically decaying τ -leptons. This allows the acceptance and thus the sensitivity to be significantly improved relative to the previous results at low masses of the ˜ χ 0 2 , where bottom-squark masses up to 850 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level, assuming a mass difference of 130 GeV between ˜ χ 0 2 and ˜ χ 0 1 . Model-independent upper limits are also set on the cross section of processes beyond the Standard Model

Measurements of differential cross-sections in four-lepton events in 13 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector

Measurements of four-lepton differential and integrated fiducial cross-sections in events with two same-flavour, opposite-charge electron or muon pairs are presented. The data correspond to 139 fb−1 of s√ = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions, collected by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider (2015–2018). The final state has contributions from a number of interesting Standard Model processes that dominate in different four-lepton invariant mass regions, including single Z boson production, Higgs boson production and on-shell ZZ production, with a complex mix of interference terms, and possible contributions from physics beyond the Standard Model. The differential cross-sections include the four-lepton invariant mass inclusively, in slices of other kinematic variables, and in different lepton flavour categories. Also measured are dilepton invariant masses, transverse momenta, and angular correlation variables, in four regions of four-lepton invariant mass, each dominated by different processes. The measurements are corrected for detector effects and are compared with state-of-the-art Standard Model calculations, which are found to be consistent with the data. The Z → 4ℓ branching fraction is extracted, giving a value of (4.41 ± 0.30) × 10−6. Constraints on effective field theory parameters and a model based on a spontaneously broken B − L gauge symmetry are also evaluated. Further reinterpretations can be performed with the provided information