Applying the European hydroacoustic standard on fish abundance estimation (EN 15910)

Hydroacoustics is an internationally approved method to study fish for abundance estimates and behaviour to increase our understanding of aquatic ecosystems. In Europe and North- America, the need to compare results between years, lakes and countries has been recognized and as a consequence of this, acoustic methods are being standardized. To study how the European standard Water quality – Guidance on the estimation of fish abundance with mobile hydroacoustic methods (CEN 2014) was perceived by different users, a joint evaluation of the implementation of the standard was performed in 2014 by hydroacoustic experts from three European countries. In some parts of the standard the participants´ actions were different from what was described by the standard, and in some cases methods differed among the participants. A general explanation for most of these cases was that stable equipment performance and experience from discrete surveys reduce the need of controlling actions. We suggest that the results of this study should be considered at the revision of the standard (EN 15910) scheduled for 2017

Efficient industrial policy for innovation: standing on the shoulders of hidden giants

Research and development is underprovided whenever it creates knowledge spillovers that drive a wedge between its total and private economic returns. Heterogeneity in the intensity of this market failure across technological areas provides an argument to vertically target public support for R&D. This paper examines potential welfare gains of such vertical industrial policy for innovation. It develops measures of private and spillover value of patented innovations using global data on patents and their citations. Our new method identifies a large number 'Hidden Giants' - i.e. innovations scoring higher on our new spillover measure than on the traditional forward citation count measure - which are shown to be particularly prevalent among patents applied for by universities. The estimated distributions of private values by technology area are then used to parameterize a structural model of innovation. The model permits estimation of the marginal returns to technology-area-specific subsidies that reduce innovators' R&D costs. Marginal returns are high when knowledge spillovers in the technology area are valuable, when private innovation costs are low, and when private values in a technology sector are densely distributed around the private cost. The results show large variation in the marginal returns to subsidy and suggest that targeted industrial policy would have helped mitigate underprovision of R&D over the time period studied. Variation in the extent to which knowledge spillovers are internalized within countries also makes a compelling case for supranational policy coordination, especially among smaller countries

Including 38 kHz in the standardization protocol for hydroacoustic fish surveys in temperate lakes

Hydroacoustics has become a requisite method to assess fish populations and allows to describe the relationships of fish with other elements of the aquatic ecosystem. This nonintrusive method is currently an integral part of the sampling procedures recommended for fish stock assessment by the Water Framework Directive and has been standardized by the European Committee for Standardization [CEN (2014) CSN EN 15910 - Water quality - Guidance on the estimation of fish abundance with mobile hydroacoustic methods, Category: 7577 Water quality. Biological.]. In Europe, hydroacoustic surveys are performed in freshwater using different frequencies. Consequently, there is a need to evaluate if survey results can be compared. This study aimed to carry out in situ comparisons at the 38 kHz frequency (noted f) with two other commonly used frequencies, 70 and 200 kHz. The 38 kHz frequency has seldom been compared with other frequencies in freshwater although it is widely used worldwide, especially in the Great Lakes of North America and in Sweden. In 2016, hydroacoustic data were acquired in Lakes Annecy and Bourget using methods validated in previous studies that compared the frequencies 70, 120 and 200 kHz. This study showed similar density and biomass estimations as a function of frequency, density(f) and biomass(f), between the frequencies studied for low to moderate fish densities. For higher fish densities, the results were more variable and need to be verified. Fish density(f) and biomass(f) estimations sometimes exhibit differences between frequencies, which is not fully in agreement with theoretical calculations. The aim of this study was to evaluate frequency comparisons in practise. However, if the differences on acoustic metrics, density(f) or biomass(f) between frequencies were occasionally statistically significant, the differences were small enough to be considered negligible for fish population management. These analyses led to better knowledge of the responses from fish in temperate lakes for the studied frequencies. Our findings should be considered when revising the CEN standard

Fatal case of hemolytic-uremic syndrome in an adult due to a rare serogroup O91 Entero hemorrhagic Escherichia coli associated with a Clostridium difficile infection. More than meets the eye

AbstractHemolytic-uremic syndrome due to enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, belonging to serogroup O91 has rarely been described. We report here a case of post-diarrheal HUS due to EHEC O91 in an elderly patient for whom diagnosis was delayed given a previously diagnosed C. difficile infection. This case highlights the usefulness of Shiga-toxin detection

Exceptional AGN-driven turbulence inhibits star formation in the 3C 326N radio galaxy

We detect bright [CII]158μm line emission from the radio galaxy 3C 326N at z=0.09, which shows weak star formation (SFR⊙~yr−1) despite having strong H2 line emission and 2×109M⊙ of molecular gas. The [CII] line is twice as strong as the 0-0S(1) 17μm H2 line, and both lines are much in excess what is expected from UV heating. We combine infrared Spitzer and Herschel data with gas and dust modeling to infer the gas physical conditions. The [CII] line traces 30 to 50% of the molecular gas mass, which is warm (70−3. The [CII] line is broad with a blue-shifted wing, and likely to be shaped by a combination of rotation, outflowing gas, and turbulence. It matches the near-infrared H2 and the Na D optical absorption lines. If the wing is interpreted as an outflow, the mass loss rate would be larger than 20M⊙/yr, and the depletion timescale shorter than the orbital timescale (108yr). These outflow rates may be over-estimated because the stochastic injection of turbulence on galactic scales can contribute to the skewness of the line profile and mimic outflowing gas. We argue that the dissipation of turbulence is the main heating process of this gas. Cosmic rays can also contribute to the heating but they require an average gas density larger than the observational constraints. We show that strong turbulent support maintains a high gas vertical scale height (0.3-4kpc) in the disk and can inhibit the formation of gravitationally-bound structures at all scales, offering a natural explanation for the weakness of star formation in 3C 326N. To conclude, the bright [CII] line indicates that strong AGN jet-driven turbulence may play a key role in enhancing the amount of molecular gas (positive feedback) but yet can prevent star formation on galactic scales (negative feedback)

Strong far-infrared cooling lines, peculiar co kinematics, and possible star-formation suppression in Hickson compact group 57

We present [C II] and [O I] observations from Herschel and CO(1-0) maps from the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) of the Hickson compact group HCG 57, focusing on the galaxies HCG 57a and HCG 57d. HCG 57a has been previously shown to contain enhanced quantities of warm molecular hydrogen consistent with shock or turbulent heating. Our observations show that HCG 57d has strong [C II] emission compared to L FIR and weak CO(1-0), while in HCG 57a, both the [C II] and CO(1-0) are strong. HCG 57a lies at the upper end of the normal distribution of the [C II]/CO and [C II]/FIR ratios, and its far-infrared (FIR) cooling supports a low-density, warm, diffuse gas that falls close to the boundary of acceptable models of a photon-dominated region. However, the power radiated in the [C II] and warm H2 emissions have similar magnitudes, as seen in other shock-dominated systems and predicted by recent models. We suggest that shock heating of the [C II] is a viable alternative to photoelectric heating in violently disturbed, diffuse gas. The existence of shocks is also consistent with the peculiar CO kinematics in the galaxy, indicating that highly noncircular motions are present. These kinematically disturbed CO regions also show evidence of suppressed star formation, falling a factor of 10-30 below normal galaxies on the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. We suggest that the peculiar properties of both galaxies are consistent with a highly dissipative, off-center collisional encounter between HCG 57d and 57a, creating ring-like morphologies in both systems. Highly dissipative gas-on-gas collisions may be more common in dense groups because of the likelihood of repeated multiple encounters. The possibility of shock-induced star-formation suppression may explain why a subset of these HCG galaxies has been found previously to fall in the mid-infrared green valley

Phylogenetic and molecular analysis of hydrogen-producing green algae

A select set of microalgae are reported to be able to catalyse photobiological H2 production from water. Based on the model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a method was developed for the screening of naturally occurring H2-producing microalgae. By purging algal cultures with N2 in the dark and subsequent illumination, it is possible to rapidly induce photobiological H2 evolution. Using NMR spectroscopy for metabolic profiling in C. reinhardtii, acetate, formate, and ethanol were found to be key compounds contributing to metabolic variance during the assay. This procedure can be used to test algal species existing as axenic or mixed cultures for their ability to produce H2. Using this system, five algal isolates capable of H2 production were identified in various aquatic systems. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using ribosomal sequence data of green unicellular algae to determine if there were taxonomic patterns of H2 production. H2-producing algal species were seen to be dispersed amongst most clades, indicating an H2-producing capacity preceded evolution of the phylum Chlorophyta

Star formation suppression in compact group galaxies: A new path to quenching?

We present CO(1-0) maps of 12 warm H2-selected Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs), covering 14 individually imaged warm H2 bright galaxies, with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy. We found a variety of molecular gas distributions within the HCGs, including regularly rotating disks, bars, rings, tidal tails, and possibly nuclear outflows, though the molecular gas morphologies are more consistent with spirals and early-type galaxies than mergers and interacting systems. Our CO-imaged HCG galaxies, when plotted on the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation, shows star formation (SF) suppression of distributed bimodally, with five objects exhibiting suppressions of 10 and depletion timescales 10 Gyr. This SF inefficiency is also seen in the efficiency per freefall time of Krumholz et al. We investigate the gas-to-dust ratios of these galaxies to determine if an incorrect LCO-M(H2) conversion caused the apparent suppression and find that HCGs have normal gas-to-dust ratios. It is likely that the cause of the apparent suppression in these objects is associated with shocks injecting turbulence into the molecular gas, supported by the fact that the required turbulent injection luminosity is consistent with the bright H2 luminosity reported by Cluver et al. Galaxies with high SF suppression ( 10) also appear to be those in the most advanced stages of transition across both optical and infrared color space. This supports the idea that at least some galaxies in HCGs are transitioning objects, where a disruption of the existing molecular gas in the system suppresses SF by inhibiting the molecular gas from collapsing and forming stars efficiently. These observations, combined with recent work on poststarburst galaxies with molecular reservoirs, indicates that galaxies do not need to expel their molecular reservoirs prior to quenching SF and transitioning from blue spirals to red early-type galaxies. This may imply that SF quenching can occur without the need to starve a galaxy of cold gas first

Strong molecular hydrogen emission and kinematics of the multiphase gas in radio galaxies with fast jet-driven outflows

Observations of ionized and neutral gas outflows in radio-galaxies (RGs) suggest that AGN radio jet feedback has a galaxy-scale impact on the host ISM, but it is still unclear how the molecular gas is affected. We present deep Spitzer IRS spectroscopy of 8 RGs that show fast HI outflows. All of these HI-outflow RGs have bright H2 mid-IR lines that cannot be accounted for by UV or X-ray heating. This suggests that the radio jet, which drives the HI outflow, is also responsible for the shock-excitation of the warm H2 gas. In addition, the warm H2 gas does not share the kinematics of the ionized/neutral gas. The mid-IR ionized gas lines are systematically broader than the H2 lines, which are resolved by the IRS (with FWHM up to 900km/s) in 60% of the detected H2 lines. In 5 sources, the NeII line, and to a lesser extent the NeIII and NeV lines, exhibit blue-shifted wings (up to -900km/s with respect to the systemic velocity) that match the kinematics of the outflowing HI or ionized gas. The H2 lines do not show broad wings, except tentative detections in 3 sources. This shows that, contrary to the HI gas, the H2 gas is inefficiently coupled to the AGN jet-driven outflow of ionized gas. While the dissipation of a small fraction (<10%) of the jet kinetic power can explain the dynamical heating of the molecular gas, our data show that the bulk of the warm molecular gas is not expelled from these galaxies.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures, Accepted for ublication in Ap