APFIC Regional Workshop on "Mainstreaming Fisheries Co-management"

This is the report of the APFIC regional workshop on "Mainstreaming fisheries co-management" held in Siem Reap, Cambodia from August 9-12, 2005 . The goal of the workshop was to provide a forum to learn from past experience and to promote devolved management of fisheries. Participants at the workshop had the opportunity to be exposed to a range of coastal and inland fisheries co-management interventions and the elaboration of approaches needed to make fisheries co-management a "mainstream" activity in developing countries. The objective of the workshop was to develop summary conclusions on the status of co-management in the region and provide some concrete recommendations for action towards mainstreaming fishery co-management in the Asia-Pacific region. The report contains the action plan and recommendations of the workshop. Many agencies (both governmental and non-governmental) are striving to improve the livelihoods of poor people that are dependent on aquatic resources by including these stakeholders in the planning and implementation of fisheries management. Many states have adopted decentralization as the way to implement future fisheries management, especially in developing countries, which often involves a partnership between government and the local communities, i.e. a co-management approach. The challenge is to find a way for co-management to become a mainstream practice of both government and non-government organizations and communities

Growth and productivity of juvenile banana prawns, Penaeus merguiensis in natural and laboratory systems

Abstract only.Growth and survival of Penaeus merguiensis juveniles were measured over four years in the Norman River estuary, south-eastern Gulf of Carpentaria. Growth in carapace length for the first 8-9 weeks after settlement was essentially linear and averaged 1.2 mm/week in summer at 29.5°C and 0.45 mm/week in winter at 19.5°C. A comparison of different cohorts under varying temperatures and salinities indicated that growth was temperature- but not salinity-dependent. Survival of newly settled postlarvae varied seasonally and was highest in spring (October-November). In the laboratory, a study of moulting rate and moult increment at 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35°C demonstrated that the optimal temperature for growth was 25-30°C. Survival of juveniles was also highest at intermediate temperatures. Effects of salinity and food ration amounts are discussed

Gender, Decision Making, and Natural Resource Co-management in Yukon

Across the Canadian North, resource co-management has become a central institution for the management of natural resources. Although many multidisciplinary studies have examined the various social and political dimensions that influence the effectiveness of resource co-management, little has been done to understand how gender might affect collaboration and decision making. This gap is particularly evident in the northern Canadian context, where women make up 16% of all current co-management board members. This study examines the relationship between gender and decision making, drawing on the experiences of those involved in co-management boards in Yukon. Our findings indicate that the representation of women within these institutions is important for establishing a holistic decision-making process and a positive institutional culture that facilitates effective decision making. While there were many different experiences with gender, co-management, and decision making, it was generally agreed that male and female board members had equal opportunities to participate in board decision making. Nonetheless, barriers remain that prevent board members from feeling comfortable acting upon these opportunities. These barriers to participation were experienced by men and women in distinct ways. Institutional level barriers—cases where women’s skills and knowledge were considered irrelevant to co-management, where their opinions lacked standing within decision making—will be the most challenging for co-management boards to address in regard to effective decision making. À l’échelle du Nord canadien, la cogestion des ressources est dorénavant une institution centrale pour assurer la gestion des ressources naturelles. De nombreuses études disciplinaires se sont penchées sur les dimensions sociopolitiques qui influent sur la cogestion des ressources. Cependant, peu d’études ont été réalisées pour comprendre en quoi le sexe de la personne exerce une influence sur la collaboration et la prise de décisions. Cet écart est particulièrement évident dans le contexte du Nord canadien, où les femmes représentent 16 % de tous les membres de conseils d’administration actuels en cogestion. Cette étude examine le lien qui existe entre le sexe de la personne et la prise de décisions. Elle s’appuie sur l’expérience de personnes qui font partie de conseils de cogestion au Yukon. Nos constatations laissent croire que la représentation des femmes au sein de ces institutions revêt de l’importance dans la création d’un processus de prise de décisions holistiques et d’une culture institutionnelle positive favorisant la prise de décisions efficaces. Bien que l’expérience différait selon le sexe des personnes, la cogestion et la prise de décisions, on a généralement constaté que les membres de conseils de sexe masculin ou de sexe féminin avaient la possibilité de participer de manière égale à la prise de décisions des conseils. Néanmoins, il reste des obstacles qui empêchent les membres de conseils de se sentir à l’aise lorsque vient le temps de saisir ces possibilités. Ces obstacles à la participation étaient vus de manières distinctes par les hommes et par les femmes. Les obstacles de niveau institutionnel — lorsque les compétences et les connaissances des femmes étaient considérées comme non pertinentes en matière de cogestion et lorsque leurs opinions manquaient de poids dans le cadre de la prise de décisions — seront les obstacles les plus difficiles à surmonter pour les conseils de cogestion en vue de la prise de décisions efficaces

Clifford Algebra Decompositions of Conformal Orthogonal Group Elements

Beginning with a finite-dimensional vector space V equipped with a nondegenerate quadratic form Q, we consider the decompositions of elements of the conformal orthogonal group COQ(V), defined as the direct product of the orthogonal group OQ(V) with dilations. Utilizing the correspondence between conformal orthogonal group elements and ``decomposable\u27\u27 elements of the associated Clifford algebra, ClQ(V), a decomposition algorithm is developed. Preliminary results on complexity reductions that can be realized passing from additive to multiplicative representations of invertible elements are also presented with examples. The approach here is based on group actions in the conformal orthogonal group. Algorithms are implemented in Mathematica using the CliffMath package

Mental representations of the supernatural: A cluster analysis of religiosity, spirituality and paranormal belief

The aim of the study was to establish a new typology of belief in the supernatural; categorising people, based on their levels of religiosity, spirituality and paranormal belief. Examining how the various beliefs are defined was a further objective. The reasons for people having different levels of these beliefs were discussed, highlighting ‘Metaphysical Chauvinism’ as a possible explanation. Previous research that used variousmethods to measure religiosity, spirituality and paranormal belief were discussed. Participants (n = 307) completed an online survey consisting of the revised Religious Life Inventory (rRLI), the Intrinsic Spirituality Scale (ISS) and the revised Paranormal Belief Scale (rPBS). Two cluster analyses were performed: one on the three main scales and a secondary analysis on the ISS, the subscales of the rRLI and the rPBS. The results revealed a four cluster solution for each analysis. For the main analysis the clusters were ‘believers’, ‘paranormal believers’, ‘sceptics’ and ‘religious believers’. Metaphysical Chauvinism was supported; however, it was acknowledged that there still appears to be a lack of consensus when defining supernatural beliefs. It is proposed that the cluster analysis approach is more effective than a simple scale when trying establish how a person believes

The Development of the Numeracy Apprehension Scale for Children Aged 4-7 Years: Qualitative Exploration of Associated Factors and Quantitative Testing

Previous psychological literature has shown mathematics anxiety in older populations to have an association with many factors, including an adverse effect on task performance. However, the origins of mathematics anxiety have, until recently, received limited attention. It is now accepted that this anxiety is rooted within the early educational years, but research has not explored the associated factors in the first formal years of schooling. Based on previous focus groups with children aged 4-7 years, ‘numeracy apprehension’ is suggested in this body of work, as the foundation phase of negative emotions and experiences, in which mathematics anxiety can develop. Building on this research, the first piece of research utilized 2 interviews and 5 focus groups to obtain insight from parents (n=7), teachers (n=9) and mathematics experts (n=2), to explore how children experience numeracy and their observations of children’s attitudes and responses. Thematic and content analysis uncovered a range of factors that characterised children’s numeracy experiences. These included: stigma and peer comparisons; the difficulty of numeracy and persistent failure; a low sense of ability; feelings of inadequacy; peer evaluation; transference of teacher anxieties; the right or wrong nature of numeracy; parental influences; dependence on peers; avoidance and children being aware of a hierarchy based on numeracy performance. Key themes reflected the focus group findings of children aged 4-7 years. This contributed to an item pool for study 2, to produce a first iteration of the Numeracy Apprehension Scale (NAS) that described day-to-day numeracy lesson situations. This 44-item measure was implemented with 307 children aged 4-7 years, across 4 schools in the U.K. Exploratory factor analysis led to a 26-item iteration of the NAS, with a 2-factor structure of Prospective Numeracy Task Apprehension and On-line Number Apprehension, which related to, for example, observation and evaluation anxiety, worry and teacher anxiety. The results suggested that mathematics anxiety may stem from the initial development of numeracy apprehension and is based on consistent negative experiences throughout an educational career. The 26-item iteration of the NAS was further validated in study 3 with 163 children aged 4-7 years, across 2 schools in the U.K. The construct validity of the scale was tested by comparing scale scores against numeracy performance on a numeracy task to determine whether a relationship between scale and numeracy task scores was evident. Exploratory factor analysis was again conducted and resulted in the current 19-item iteration of the NAS that related to a single factor of On-line Number Apprehension. This related to the experience of an entire numeracy lesson, from first walking in to completing a task and was associated with, for example, explaining an answer to the teacher, making mistakes and getting work wrong. A significant negative correlation was observed between the NAS and numeracy performance scores, suggesting that apprehensive children demonstrate a performance deficit early in education and that the NAS has the potential to be a reliable assessment of children’s numeracy apprehension. This empirical reinforces that the early years of education are the origins of mathematics anxiety, in the form of numeracy apprehension

SeePrivacy: Automated Contextual Privacy Policy Generation for Mobile Applications

Privacy policies have become the most critical approach to safeguarding individuals' privacy and digital security. To enhance their presentation and readability, researchers propose the concept of contextual privacy policies (CPPs), aiming to fragment policies into shorter snippets and display them only in corresponding contexts. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-modal framework, namely SeePrivacy, designed to automatically generate contextual privacy policies for mobile apps. Our method synergistically combines mobile GUI understanding and privacy policy document analysis, yielding an impressive overall 83.6% coverage rate for privacy-related context detection and an accuracy of 0.92 in extracting corresponding policy segments. Remarkably, 96% of the retrieved policy segments can be correctly matched with their contexts. The user study shows SeePrivacy demonstrates excellent functionality and usability (4.5/5). Specifically, participants exhibit a greater willingness to read CPPs (4.1/5) compared to original privacy policies (2/5). Our solution effectively assists users in comprehending privacy notices, and this research establishes a solid foundation for further advancements and exploration

The neurophysiological relationship between number anxiety and the EEG gamma-band

The development of math anxiety is thought to originate at a young age, as a form of number anxiety, but has not been investigated extensively. Research has shown greater levels of EEG gamma-band activity are experienced during threat perception and attentional bias. This has been identified in high math anxious individuals when confronted with math-based tasks, but has not yet been explored for number anxiety specifically. Single-digit numbers and letters were presented to 15 high and 15 low math anxious participants, who were required to observe the stimuli. High math anxious participants displayed significantly greater levels of gamma activity during number observation compared to letter observation. Findings suggest high math anxious individuals may have a threat-related response to observation of simple numerical stimuli. Further behavioural investigations are needed, but high math anxious individuals may display avoidance towards number and math due to a threat response associated with increased gamma activity.N/

Acquisition, development and maintenance of maths anxiety in young children

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Exploring the relationship between gamma-band activity and maths anxiety

Previous research has outlined high anxiety in connection with gamma modulation, identifying that gamma-band activity (40–100 Hz) correlates with processing of threat perception, attention and anxiety. Maths anxiety research has also noted the involvement of these aspects, yet this has not been investigated from a neurophysiological standpoint. Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to research gamma-band activity in relation to maths anxiety over two studies. The first measured gamma differences during the processing of complex addition and multiplication stimuli. Results identified differences between high and low maths anxious individuals; significantly greater gamma power was observed in those with high maths anxiety than those with low maths anxiety. As a control condition was not used, the second study replicated the design, but also applied a non-numerical control condition amongst the other stimuli sets. This showed significantly greater gamma activity in high maths anxious individuals across numerical conditions, but not in the non-numerical condition. High maths anxious individuals likely show attentional bias and threat perception to numerical-based stimuli, as indexed by gamma power. This study provides the first evidence of greater gamma-band activity in high maths anxious individuals and serves as a foundation for the exploration of gamma activity in high maths anxious individuals.N/