225 research outputs found
Aquaculture Situation and Outlook Report 2009: Maine
The Maine aquaculture industry is diverse, with a variety of marine and freshwater species raised. Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) production dominates in terms of value and pounds harvested. The 2008 data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) estimate over 19 million pounds produced with a value of 2 million and 30 million: 3 million for shellfish (oysters and mussels), 2 million for research and development (O\u27Hare, 2007). This indicates that salmon production more than doubled between 2007 and 2008, from over 8 million pounds to over 19 million, and the value rose in consequence. The increase in production is due to continued investment in salmon production as well as recovery from the drastic reductions that were caused by Infectious Salmon Anemia virus earlier in the decade. Now, effective management and biosecurity protocols are in place, and salmon production is back to where it was in 1996
-Schur functions and affine Schubert calculus
This book is an exposition of the current state of research of affine
Schubert calculus and -Schur functions. This text is based on a series of
lectures given at a workshop titled "Affine Schubert Calculus" that took place
in July 2010 at the Fields Institute in Toronto, Ontario. The story of this
research is told in three parts: 1. Primer on -Schur Functions 2. Stanley
symmetric functions and Peterson algebras 3. Affine Schubert calculusComment: 213 pages; conference website:
http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/10-11/schubert/, updates
and corrections since v1. This material is based upon work supported by the
National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMS-065264
Gender differences within 360âdegree managerial performance appraisals
Purpose
â The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of gender on the performance assessments of managers arising from the 360âdegree scheme operated within the UK headquarters of a large multiâinternational financial services organisation.
Design/methodology/approach
â A questionnaire approach was used to collect data on 66 managers (33 males and 33 females) against four broad capabilities on the 360âdegree appraisal system. Data were gathered on each of the 66 managers from eight different sources including the individual being appraised, three of their peers, three of their direct reports (subordinates) and their manager (supervisor).
Findings
â Performance ratings were either gender neutral or higher for female than for male managers. Within the case company there was no evidence of unfavourable discrimination against female managers, if anything the reverse with female managers showing superior performance compared to their male counterparts.
Research limitations/implications
â As with all crossâsectional research causality cannot be confirmed and difficulties in accessing 360âdegree appraisal information for a large number of managers led to constraints on research methodology.
Practical implications
â The implication for human resource management is that the 360âdegree appraisal system did not necessarily fulfil the degree of objectivity claimed by its adherents and that possible adverse influence may be inherent within the 360âdegree rating system of managers particularly
Practitioner perspectives on the application of palaeoecology in nature conservation
It is widely recognised that palaeoecology holds great potential to inform and support nature conservation, but that there are difficulties in knowledge exchange between academia and practitioners that inhibit the operationalisation of research. To facilitate the integration of palaeoecology into the conservation toolkit, it is essential to understand perspectives of the practitioners themselves and the contexts in which they work. This paper reports the results of a survey of 153 UK-based conservation practitioners, concerning their perceptions of palaeoecology, the barriers to its use and potential solutions for making palaeoecological insights more accessible in conservation practice. The survey was conducted online over a period of 3 months; closed question responses were analysed for statistical trends and thematic analysis was done on open question responses. The majority of respondents were strongly positive about the role palaeoecological research could play, though they also exhibited a limited understanding of how and why one might implement it. They identified time constraints as the biggest barrier to using palaeoecology within their work, and also flagged concerns around financial resources and the accessibility of the research. Access to applied case studies and a centralised database were the most favoured solutions among respondents. Respondents with prior experience of working with palaeoecology were generally more optimistic about its incorporation. This paper makes several key recommendations to progress the integration of palaeoecology into conservation, including improving data accessibility, aligning research design with conservation and policy drivers, and increasing both respective groupsâ understanding of the other
The reverse shock of SNR1987A at 18 years after outburst
We use low-dispersion spectra obtained at the Magellan Observatory to study
the broad H-alpha emission from the reverse shock of the infant supernova
remnant SNR1987A. These spectra demonstrate that the spatio-kinematic structure
of the reverse shock can be distinguished from that of the circumstellar ring
and hotspots, even at ground-based spatial resolution. We measure a total
dereddened H-alpha flux of 1.99(pm0.22)e-13 ergs/s/cm2 at an epoch 18.00 years
after outburst. At 50 kpc, the total reverse shock luminosity in H-alpha is
roughly 15 Lsun, which implies a total flux of neutral hydrogen atoms across
the reverse shock of 8.9e46/s, or roughly 2.3e-3 Msun/yr. This represents an
increase by a factor ~4 since 1997. Lyman continuum radiation from gas shocked
by the forward blast wave can ionize neutral hydrogen atoms in the supernova
debris before they reach the reverse shock. If the inward flux of ionizing
photons exceeds the flux of hydrogen atoms approaching the reverse shock, this
pre-ionization will shut off the broad Ly-alpha and H-alpha emission. The
observed X-ray emission of SNR1987A implies that the ratio of ionizing flux to
hydrogen atom flux across the reverse shock is presently at least 0.04. The
X-ray emission is increasing much faster than the flux of atoms, and if these
trends continue, we estimate that the broad Ly-alpha and H-alpha emission will
vanish within about 7 years.Comment: 5 pgs, Fig 1 in color, accepted by ApJ Letter
Practitioner perspectives on the application of palaeoecology in nature conservation
It is widely recognised that palaeoecology holds great potential to inform and support nature conservation, but that there are difficulties in knowledge exchange between academia and practitioners that inhibit the operationalisation of research. To facilitate the integration of palaeoecology into the conservation toolkit, it is essential to understand perspectives of the practitioners themselves and the contexts in which they work. This paper reports the results of a survey of 153 UK-based conservation practitioners, concerning their perceptions of palaeoecology, the barriers to its use and potential solutions for making palaeoecological insights more accessible in conservation practice. The survey was conducted online over a period of 3 months; closed question responses were analysed for statistical trends and thematic analysis was done on open question responses. The majority of respondents were strongly positive about the role palaeoecological research could play, though they also exhibited a limited understanding of how and why one might implement it. They identified time constraints as the biggest barrier to using palaeoecology within their work, and also flagged concerns around financial resources and the accessibility of the research. Access to applied case studies and a centralised database were the most favoured solutions among respondents. Respondents with prior experience of working with palaeoecology were generally more optimistic about its incorporation. This paper makes several key recommendations to progress the integration of palaeoecology into conservation, including improving data accessibility, aligning research design with conservation and policy drivers, and increasing both respective groupsâ understanding of the other
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