153 research outputs found
AKTEA network: perils and prospects
Twenty years of organising by women in Europeâs fisheries have led to important gains, challenges and opportunities
Towards Engaging Intangible Holographic Public Displays
Public displays are some of the most challenging interfaces to design because of two key characteristics. First, the experience should be engaging, to attract and maintain usersâ attention. Second, the interaction with the display should be natural, meaning that users should be able to receive the desired output with little or no training. Holographic displays are increasingly popular in public spaces such as museums and concert halls but there is little published research on usersâ experiences with such displays. Previous research has suggested both tangible and intangible inputs as engaging and natural options for holographic displays, but there is no conclusive evidence on their relative merits. Hence, we run a study to investigate the user experience with a holographic display comparing the level of engagement and feeling of natural experience in the interacting process. We used a mix of surveys, interviews, video recordings, and task-based metrics to measure usersâ performance on a specific task, the perceived usability, and levels of engagement and satisfaction. Our findings suggest that a tangible input was reported as more natural than the intangible one, however, both tangible and intangible inputs were found to be equally engaging. The latter findings contribute to the efforts of designing intangible public holographic displays and other interactive systems that take into consideration health safety issues, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic era in which contamination can be established with tangible and physical interaction between users and public displays, yet without affecting the level of engagement compared to the tangible experience
Spatial, Ecological and Social Dimensions of Assessments for Bivalve Farming Management
The general purpose of assessment is to provide decision-makers with the best valuable data, information, and predictions with which management decisions will be supported. Using case studies taken from four scientific projects and dealing with the management of marine bivalve resources, lessons learned allowed identifying some issues regarding assessment approaches. The selected projects also introduced methodological or institutional frameworks: ecosystem approach to aquaculture (EAA), system approach framework (SAF), marine spatial planning (MSP), and valuation of ecosystem services (ES).
The study on ecosystem services linked ES to marine habitats and identified ES availability and vulnerability to pressures. The results were displayed as maps of resulting potential services with qualitative metrics. The vulnerability value is an alternative to monetary valuation and, in addition to identifying the most suitable areas for each type of ES, this metric allows identifying the management strategies that will most probably maintain or affect each individual ES.
The MSP example focused on bivalve farming activity and accounted for several criteria: habitat suitability, growth performance, environmental and regulation constraints and presence of other activities. The ultimate endpoint of such an approach is a map with qualitative values stating whether a location is suitable or not, depending on the weight given to each criterion.
In the EAA case study, the indicator was defined by the growth performance of cultivated bivalves in different locations. This indicator is affected by distant factors â e.g. populations of marine organisms competing for the same food resource, nutrient inputs from rivers, time to renew water bodies under the action of tidal currents. The role and interactions of these factors were assessed with a dynamical ecosystem model.
Examples illustrate that the assessment is often multi-dimensional, and that multiple variables would interact and affect the response to management options. Therefore, the existence of trade-offs, the definition of the appropriate spatial scale and resolution, the temporal dynamics and the distant effects of factors are keys to a policy-relevant assessment. EA and SAF examples show the interest of developing models relating response to input variables and testing scenarios. Dynamic models would be preferred when the relationship between input and output variables may be masked by non-linear effects, delay of responses or differences of scales.
When decision-making requires economic methods, monetary values are often of poor significance, especially for those ecosystem services whose loss could mean the end of life, and appear to be a comfortable oversimplification of reality of socio-ecological systems which cannot be summarized in single numbers. Alternative methods, such as the ones proposed in the SAF and ES examples, would preferably consider institutional analysis or multicriteria assessment rather than single monetary values.
Case studies also highlighted that credibility of assessment tools benefit from the association of stakeholders at different stages, among which: identification of the most critical policy issues; definition of system characteristics including ecological, economical and regulation dimensions; definition of modelling scenarios to sort out the most effective management options; assessment of models and indicators outputs.publishedVersio
Recommended from our members
Innovative diversification of fishing units through women initiatives
Traditionally, European fisherwomen were often involved in fisheries sector by selling fish. Today, their contribution is more diversified with very limited legal recognition: management of fishing enterprise, maintenance of gears. Fisherwomen continue to sell fish because it is often a good way to get a better price. Confronted with economic difficulty, fishing households are faced with the alternative of re-conversion in another activity or the search for complementary source of incomes. One way of generating new income lies in the diversification of activities while remaining centred on fishing. Valorising the product and the image of fishing by processing or by providing catering/accommodation services is a route that many of them are exploring. Women occupy a centre position within this concept of fishing based diversification. They appear to have been very innovate in Europe by developing new activities such as accommodation for tourists, processing units, collective fish markets. By setting, under their responsibility, new activities, these women have gained more recognition as income providers in the households. It has also contributed to take many of them in the arena of public voicing. This presentation will be illustrated by empirical material collected under the EU funded FEMMES programme, a network launched by researchers in social and humans sciences and fisherwomen associations.Keywords: Europe, fisherwomen, innovation, Gender Issues in Fisheries and Aquaculture, Fisheries Economics, diversificatio
FWO: Revive, renew and re-launch!
AKTEA is the European network of women in fisheries and its main objective is to lobby at European Union level for women rights in fisheries. It was established in 2006 by fisherwomen organisations from different European countries who collectively volunteered to take this movement forward. For several years AKTEA was unable to organise its annual meeting due to lack of financial resources, amongst other reasons. In February 2020, however, the network was able to meet thanks to the partnership collaboration established with Low Impact Fishers in Europe (LIFE) and the financial support provided by the MAVA foundation
Stakeholder perspectives on fisheries science and modelling:focus group discussions in Spain, Greece, UK, Denmark and Ireland
- âŠ