Assessment of Atlantic Red Drum for 1999: Northern and southern regions

An assessment of the status of the Atlantic stock of red drum is conducted using recreational and commercial data from 1986 through 1998. This assessment updates data and analyses from the 1989, 1991, 1992 and 1995 stock assessments on Atlantic coast red drum (Vaughan and Helser, 1990; Vaughan 1992; 1993; 1996). Since 1981, coastwide recreational catches ranged between 762,300 pounds in 1980 and 2,623,900 pounds in 1984, while commercial landings ranged between 60,900 pounds in 1997 and 422,500 pounds in 1984. In weight of fish caught, Atlantic red drum constitute predominantly a recreational fishery (ranging between 85 and 95% during the 1990s). Commercially, red drum continue to be harvested as part of mixed species fisheries. Using available length-frequency distributions and age-length keys, recreational and commercial catches are converted to catch in numbers at age. Separable and tuned virtual population analyses are conducted on the catch in numbers at age to obtain estimates of fishing mortality rates and population size (including recruitment to age 1). In tum, these estimates of fishing mortality rates combined with estimates of growth (length and weight), sex ratios, sexual maturity and fecundity are used to estimate yield per recruit, escapement to age 4, and static (or equilibrium) spawning potential ratio (static SPR, based on both female biomass and egg production). Three virtual analysis approaches (separable, spreadsheet, and FADAPT) were applied to catch matrices for two time periods (early: 1986-1991, and late: 1992-1998) and two regions (Northern: North Carolina and north, and Southern: South Carolina through east coast of Florida). Additional catch matrices were developed based on different treatments for the catch-and-release recreationally-caught red drum (B2-type). These approaches included assuming 0% mortality (BASEO) versus 10% mortality for B2 fish. For the 10% mortality on B2 fish, sizes were assumed the same as caught fish (BASEl), or positive difference in size distribution between the early period and the later period (DELTA), or intermediate (PROP). Hence, a total of 8 catch matrices were developed (2 regions, and 4 B2 assumptions for 1986-1998) to which the three VPA approaches were applied. The question of when offshore emigration or reduced availability begins (during or after age 3) continues to be a source of bias that tends to result in overestimates of fishing mortality. Additionally, the continued assumption (Vaughan and Helser, 1990; Vaughan 1992; 1993; 1996) of no fishing mortality on adults (ages 6 and older), causes a bias that results in underestimates of fishing mortality for adult ages (0 versus some positive value). Because of emigration and the effect of the slot limit for the later period, a range in relative exploitations of age 3 to age 2 red drum was considered. Tuning indices were developed from the MRFSS, and state indices for use in the spreadsheet and FADAPT VPAs. The SAFMC Red Drum Assessment Group (Appendix A) favored the FADAPT approach with catch matrix based on DELTA and a selectivity for age 3 relative to age 2 of 0.70 for the northern region and 0.87 for the southern region. In the northern region, estimates of static SPR increased from about 1.3% for the period 1987-1991 to approximately 18% (15% and 20%) for the period 1992-1998. For the southern region, estimates of static SPR increased from about 0.5% for the period 1988-1991 to approximately 15% for the period 1992-1998. Population models used in this assessment (specifically yield per recruit and static spawning potential ratio) are based on equilibrium assumptions: because no direct estimates are available as to the current status of the adult stock, model results imply potential longer term, equilibrium effects. Because current status of the adult stock is unknown, a specific rebuilding schedule cannot be determined. However, the duration of a rebuilding schedule should reflect, in part, a measure of the generation time of the fish species under consideration. For a long-lived, but relatively early spawning, species as red drum, mean generation time would be on the order of 15 to 20 years based on age-specific egg production. Maximum age is 50 to 60 years for the northern region, and about 40 years for the southern region. The ASMFC Red Drum Board's first phase recovery goal of increasing %SPR to at least 10% appears to have been met. (PDF contains 79 pages

The Effects of Inhomogeneities on Evaluating the Deceleration Parameter q0_0

Analytic expressions for distance-redshift relations which have been corrected for the effects of some inhomogeneities in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) mass density are used to illustrate the significance of inhomogeneities on a determination of $q_0$ made by using Type Ia supernovae. The value of $q_0$ inferred from a given set of observations depends on the fractional amount of matter in inhomogeneities and is up to 50 percent larger than that obtained by using the standard Mattig $m$-$z$ result for pure dust FRW models.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures in separate uuencoded fil

The coral fauna of the Midway Eocene of Texas

The coral fauna of the Midway Eocene of Texas includes thirteen separate species and varieties. Only two of the species, each represented in a single locality by a single specimen, belong to the colonial types. The remaining eleven species, containing probably 95 per cent of the specimens, are all of solitary forms. Evidently the Texas Midway seas did not afford conditions favorable to the growth of reef-building corals

Bag and size limit analyses for red drum in Northern and Southern Regions of the U.S. Atlantic

Assessments of the Atlantic red drum for the northern (North Carolina and north) and southern (South Carolina through east coast of Florida) regions along the U. S. Atlantic coast were recently completed. The joint Red Drum Technical Committee (SAFMC/ASMFC) selected the most appropriate catch matrix (incorporating an assumption on size of recreationally-released fish), selectivity of age 3 relative to age 2, and virtual population analysis (FADAPT). Given gear- and age-specific estimates of fishing mortality (F) for the 1992-1998 period, analyses were made of potential gains in escapement through age 4 and static spawning potential ratio (SPR) from further reductions in fishing mortality due to changes in slot and bag limits. Savings from bag limits were calculated given a particular slot size for the recreational fishery, with no savings for the commercial fisheries in the northern region due to their being managed primarily through a quota. Relative changes in catch-at-age estimates were used to adjust age-specific F and hence calculated escapement through age 4 and static SPR. Adjustment was made with the recreational savings to account for release mortality (10%, as in the stock assessment). Alternate runs for the northern region commercial fishery considered 25% release mortality for lengths outside the slot (instead of 0% for the base run), and 0% vs. 10% gain or loss across legal sizes in F. These results are summarized for ranges of bag limits with increasing minimum size limit (for fixed maximum size), and with decreasing maximum size limit (for fixed minimum size limit). For the southern region, a bag limit of one-fish per angler trip would be required to attain the stated target of 40% static SPR if the current slot limit were not changed. However, for the northern region, a bag limit of one-fish per angler trip appears to be insufficient to attain the stated target of 40% static SPR while maintaining the current slot limit. (PDF contains 41 pages

Development of fire-resistant wood structural panels

Structural panels made with Xylok 210 resin as the binder had a burn-through resistance at least equal to the structural panels made with Kerimid 500. Therefore, because of its comparative ease of handling, Xylok 210 was selected as the resin binder to provide the baseline panel for the study of a means of improving the flame-spread resistance of the structural panels. The final resin-filler system consisted of Xylok 210 binder with the addition of ammonium oxalate and ammonium phosphate to the strands of the surface layers, using 24% of each salt based upon the air-dry weight of the strands. This system resulted in a panel with a flame-spread code of about 60, a Class 2 classification. A standard phenolic based structural panel had a flame-spread greater than 200 for laboratory prepared panels. The burn-through tests indicated an average burn-through time of 588 seconds for the specimens made with the final system. This compares to an average burn-through time of 287 seconds for the standard phenolic base structural specimen. One full-size panel was made with the final system

The major myosin-binding domain of skeletal muscle MyBP-C (C protein) resides in the COOH-terminal, immunoglobulin C2 motif.

A common feature shared by myosin-binding proteins from a wide variety of species is the presence of a variable number of related internal motifs homologous to either the Ig C2 or the fibronectin (Fn) type III repeats. Despite interest in the potential function of these motifs, no group has clearly demonstrated a function for these sequences in muscle, either intra- or extracellularly. We have completed the nucleotide sequence of the fast type isoform of MyBP-C (C protein) from chicken skeletal muscle. The deduced amino acid sequence reveals seven Ig C2 sets and three Fn type III motifs in MyBP-C. alpha-chymotryptic digestion of purified MyBP-C gives rise to four peptides. NH2-terminal sequencing of these peptides allowed us to map the position of each along the primary structure of the protein. The 28-kD peptide contains the NH2-terminal sequence of MyBP-C, including the first C2 repeat. It is followed by two internal peptides, one of 5 kD containing exclusively spacer sequences between the first and second C2 motifs, and a 95-kD fragment containing five C2 domains and three fibronectin type III motifs. The C-terminal sequence of MyBP-C is present in a 14-kD peptide which contains only the last C2 repeat. We examined the binding properties of these fragments to reconstituted (synthetic) myosin filaments. Only the COOH-terminal 14-kD peptide is capable of binding myosin with high affinity. The NH2-terminal 28-kD fragment has no myosin-binding, while the long internal 100-kD peptide shows very weak binding to myosin. We have expressed and purified the 14-kD peptide in Escherichia coli. The recombinant protein exhibits saturable binding to myosin with an affinity comparable to that of the 14-kD fragment obtained by proteolytic digestion (1/2 max binding at approximately 0.5 microM). These results indicate that the binding to myosin filaments is mainly restricted to the last 102 amino acids of MyBP-C. The remainder of the molecule (1,032 amino acids) could interact with titin, MyBP-H (H protein) or thin filament components. A comparison of the highly conserved Ig C2 domains present at the COOH-terminus of five MyBPs thus far sequenced (human slow and fast MyBP-C, human and chicken MyBP-H, and chicken MyBP-C) was used to identify residues unique to these myosin-binding Ig C2 repeats

The Recent Decline and Fall of Freedom of the Press in English Law

A television company broadcasts a program criticizing a nationalized corporation and disclosing documents passed to it secretly by one of the corporation\u27s employees. The corporation asks the television company to reveal the identity of the employee. The television company refuses and eight of nine judges ultimately decide that the refusal is unjustified. That, in essence, is the story of British Steel Corp. v. Granada Television, Ltd. If this situation had arisen in the United States, legal consequences probably would be unremarkable in view of the law\u27s considerable experience with such matters. The novelty posed for English law, however, and the reaction prompted from all three levels of the judicial hierarchy make the tale and its implications worthy of some elucidation. This Article will explain the case, its implications for the confidentiality of journalists\u27 sources and, more generally, the judicial attitude toward freedom of the press in the United Kingdom, as exemplified by other, more recent decisions

Praesentia Sublimis: Studies in the Differend

Interrogating the notion of the differend, taken from Jean-Franҫois Lyotard’s book of the same name, in which a wrong occurs along with the impossibility of its representation as a wrong, this thesis attempts to rearticulate the relationship between the distant and heterogeneous theories dealing with a supposedly common subject matter: namely, the sublime. The sublime as it is taken up in the rhetorical pedagogy of Longinus, the transcendental aesthetic of Immanuel Kant, and the postmodern theory of Jean-Franҫois Lyotard refuses to yield a shared dimension that could bind together these major moments of thought. There are sublimes, it seems, rather than a single sublime. Against this, I contend that the thought of these three figures all constitute a site for a differend involving that which is both singular and irreducible in its happening here and now and therefore always escapes representation: the event of presentation as such