Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme for South and Southeast Asia (RFLP) Activity 1.5 (2011): Systems and Procedures for Participatory Monitoring of Management Measures Developed, Introduced and Implemented-catch Monitoring

Coastal fisheries are very essential for supporting the livelihoods of many rural poor in the coastal areas, particularly coastal community fisheries members. They serve as sources of food, employment and income generation for many coastal families. "Coastal Community Fisheries Catch Monitoring" Project which was conducted from April to November 2011 provides some data which indicates the importance of small-scale fisheries. The project was financially supported by the Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme, Cambodian component (RFLP/CMB) and was activity 1.5 of the approved RFLP CMB 2011 activity work plan and budget. For this catch monitoring study, 26 small-scale subsistence fishers, including 05 women, from five community fisheries (CFi?s) in the RFLP CMB area of geographic coverage from the four coastal provinces of Cambodia were selected and following appropriate training collected specific catch data and recorded it in fisher's logbook on a daily basis for the purpose of getting a better understanding of catch per unit of effort (CEPU), the health of inshore fish stock and the contribution of aquatic products to small-scale fisher households along the coast of Cambodia. The key data items recorded included total catchweight, catch weight by species, total catch sale price, fish price of the main species and total lengths of some key species. The study involved designing logbooks, training the selected 26 fishers as data collectors on data collection methods, collecting data from all the selected fishers, designing a database and entering all the collected data into the database, checking for errors and analyzing the collected data for final reporting and preparing report

Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Roselle (Hibiscus Sabdariffa L.) Calyx and Effect of Processing and Storage on the Stability of Anthocyanins in Roselle Juice

The main purpose of this project was to focus on determining the physicochemical properties of roselle calyx, to develop a processing method that would optimise the colour stability and determining the influences of different treatments on roselle juice during storage. The physico-chemical characteristics of roselle included size, weight, pH, titratable acidity, soluble solids, anthocyanin contents, colour density, polymeric colour, percent polymeric colour and browning index were studied. Succinic acid and glucose were the major organic acid and sugar found present in roselle with 0.51 g/100g and 1.29 g/100g, respectively. The most biologically effective natural antioxidant vitamins such as ascorbic acid, p-carotene and lycopene were also determined and quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The amounts of ascorbic acid, p-carotene and lycopene contents were 141.09 mg/100g, 1.88 mg/100g and 164.34 mg/100g, respectively. Two main anthocyan ins namely delphinidin-3-sambubioside and cyanidin-3- sambubioside were present in roselle detected by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and HPLC. The optimum conditions for hot water extraction (HWE) of roselle juice was determined by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Time-temperature combinations in the range of 30-300 minutes and 30-90°C were the independent variables and their effects on anthocyanins content, colour density and ascorbic acid were evaluated The results implied an optimum juice extraction condition for HWE to be at 3.5 hours at 60°C. The juice obtained from HWE method was then compared with juices obtained from hot water blending (HWB) method, cold water blending (CWB) method and screw press (SP) method for their physico-chemical characteristics and sensory evaluation. Results of the study indicated that HWE method was found to be the most effective extraction method resulting in high anthocyanins content and ascorbic acid. Sensory evaluation also showed that juice obtained from HWE method was higher in quality in termed of taste, colours and flavour. Juice produce through SP method was poor in quality and sensory result compare with other. Four different treatments were given to the sample roselle juice: control (no additions), ascorbic acid, cysteine hydrochloride and sodium metabisulphite. The influence of storage at 4 ± 2°C, 27 ± 2°C and 40 ± 2°C was investigated. Losses in anthocyanins and ascorbic acid were very small during 12 weeks storage at 4°C as compared to 27°C and 40°C. Higher temperature caused anthocyanin degradation more rapidly. The addition of sodium metabisulphite in roselle juice slowed down the loss of anthocyanins and correspondingly decreased the rate of polymeric colour.Addition of cysteine hydrochloride had only slight effect on colour stability and addition of ascorbic acid seemed to increase the degradation on anthocyanin contents. Addition of cysteine hydrochloride in roselle juice prevents ascorbic acid loss during storage

A chaotic spread spectrum system for underwater acoustic communication

The work is supported in part by NSFC (Grant no. 61172070), IRT of Shaanxi Province (2013KCT-04), EPSRC (Grant no.Ep/1032606/1).Peer reviewedPostprin