Benchmarking for Fisheries Governance

The paper develops a benchmarking framework to improve fisheries governance and promote resilient ecosystems and profitable fisheries. The benchmarking includes five key components: accountability; transparency; incentives; risk assessment and management; and adaptability. Collectively, these factors provide a framework to benchmark and improve fisheries governance. Initial findings from benchmarking in two of Australia's Commonwealth fisheries indicate that the framework provides an important tool to help overcome the underlying causes of unsustainability in capture fisheries - poor and/or ineffective fisheries governance.fisheries, governance, sustainability

By any memes necessary? Small political acts, incidental exposure and memes during the 2017 UK general election

Following the 2017 UK general election, there was much debate about the so-called ‘youthquake’, or increase in youth turnout (YouGov). Some journalists claimed it was the ‘. . . memes wot won it’. This article seeks to understand the role of memes during political campaigns. Combining meta-data and content analysis, this article aims to answer three questions. First, who creates political memes? Second, what is the level of engagement with political memes and who engages with them? Finally, can any meaningful political information be derived from memes? The findings here suggest that by far the most common producers of memes were citizens suggesting that memes may be a form of citizen-initiated political participation. There was a high level of engagement with memes with almost half a million shares in our sample. However, the level of policy information in memes was low suggesting they are unlikely to increase political knowledge

The Four-Loop Dressing Phase of N=4 SYM

We compute the dilatation generator in the su(2) sector of planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory at four-loops. We use the known world-sheet scattering matrix to constrain the structure of the generator. The remaining few coefficients can be computed directly from Feynman diagrams. This allows us to confirm previous conjectures for the leading contribution to the dressing phase which is proportional to zeta(3).Comment: 19 pages, v2: referenced adde

A tale of three tribes : UK MPs, Twitter and the EU Referendum

This paper examines the structure of Twitter communication networks between MPs during the 2016 EU Referendum campaign. In particular, the research examines the impact of Twitter in two dimensions: (1) how far social media might facilitate inter-party linkages thus eroding traditional partisan relations between MPs? This was given added potential by the supposedly cross-party nature of the Referendum campaign and, therefore, we specifically examined the collective communicative networks that formed around Leave and Remain amongst MPs; (2) Given the potential of social media to provide a platform for individual politicians to personalize campaigns, we asked how far social media might disrupt traditional formal intra-party hierarchies? Did, for example, backbench or relatively unknown figures come to the fore in the EU debate? Our results indicate that whilst there existed a high degree of partisanship, interestingly, Remainer MPs tended to adhere to party networks resulting in a divided remain network. By contrast, the Leave network was more unified but also more porous. Within the networks themselves, the centrality of individual MPs did not always reflect their formal status

A new genus of ovuliferous glossopterid fructifications from South Africa

Main articleA new genus of Early Permian glossopterid fructifications, Gladiopomum, is established to accommodate pedicellate, capitate fructifications with narrow receptacles, apical spines, and very broad wings. Two species recognized within this genus were previously assigned to Scutum Plumstead and Hirsutum Plumstead, viz., G. dutoitides (Plumstead) comb. nov. and G. acadarense (Anderson & Anderson) comb. nov. An additional species, G. elongatum sp. nov. is established based on material from a new fossil locality at Rietspruit Colliery in the northern Karoo Basin. All species of Gladiopomum are confined to the Vryheid Formation; the genus may constitute a useful biostratigraphic index taxon for Artinskian strata throughout the Karoo Basin.Palaeo-Anthropology Scientific Trust; French Embassy in South Africa; Co-operation and Cultural Service

Eliminating ambiguities for quantum corrections to strings moving in AdS4×CP3AdS_4\times \mathbb{CP}^3

We apply a physical principle, previously used to eliminate ambiguities in quantum corrections to the 2 dimensional kink, to the case of spinning strings moving in $AdS_4\times \mathbb{CP}^3$, thought of as another kind of two dimensional soliton. We find that this eliminates the ambiguities and selects the result compatible with AdS/CFT, providing a solid foundation for one of the previous calculations, which found agreement. The method can be applied to other classical string "solitons".Comment: 18 pages, latex; references added, comments added at end of section 4, a few words changed; footnote added on page 1

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTS OF A SIMULATED EFFUSION IN HEALTHY SUBJECTS ON KNEE KINEMATICS AND LOWER LIMB MUSCLE ACTIVITY DURING A SINGLE LEG DROP LANDING

Arthrogenic muscle inhibition (AMI) is defined as an ongoing reflex inhibition of the musculature surrounding a joint following distension or damage to the structures of that joint [Hopkins and Ingersoll, 2000]. AMI following joint injury may affect movement and muscle recruitment which may impair rehabilitation and delay the return to activity. Knee angular displacement and velocity as well as lower limb EMG were measured in the period 250 milliseconds pre initial contact to 250 milliseconds post initial contact during a single leg drop jump in 8 healthy subjects before and after a simulated knee joint effusion of 60 millilitres. Repeated measures ANOVA and post hoc testing revealed no statistically significant differences in pre and post effusion in knee kinematic or lower limb EMG measures undertaken. A simulated knee effusion did not result in significant alterations to knee joint mechanics or lower limb muscle activation patterns during a single leg drop landing. The mechanism by which an effusion affects motor control during functional and dynamic weight bearing tasks warrants further investigation

Comparative whisper vowel space for Singapore English and British English accents

Whispered speech, as a relatively common form of communications, has received little research effort in spite of its usefulness in everyday vocal communications. Apart from a few notable studies analysing the main whispered vowels and some quite general estimations of whispered speech characteristics, a classic vowel space determination has been lacking for whispers. Aligning with the previous published work which aimed to redress this shortfall by presenting a vowel formant space for whispers, this paper studies Singapore English (SgE) from this respect. Furthermore, by comparing the shift amounts between normal and whispered vowel formants in two different English accents, British West Midlands (WM) and SgE, the study also considers the question of generalisation of shift amount and direction for two dissimilar accent groupings. It is further suggested that the shift amounts for each vowel are almost consistent for F2 while these vary for F1, showing the role of accent in proposing a general correlation between normal and whispered vowels on first formant. This paper presents the results of the formant analysis, in terms of acoustic vowel space mappings, showing differences between normal and whispered speech for SgE, and compares this to results obtained from the analysis of more standard English