Solomon Islands: Western Hub scoping report

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) are places where farming and fishing in freshwater and/or coastal ecosystems contribute significantly to household income and food security. Globally, the livelihoods of many poor and vulnerable people are dependent on these systems. In recognition of the importance of AAS, the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) is undertaking a new generation of global agricultural research programs on key issues affecting global food security and rural development. The overall goal of the research program is to improve the well-being of people dependent on these systems. Solomon Islands is one of five priority countries in the AAS program, led by WorldFish. In Solomon Islands, the AAS program operates in the Malaita Hub (Malaita Province) and the Western Hub (Western Province). This program and its scoping activities are summarized in this report.

Solomon Islands: Western Province situation analysis

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) are places where farming and fishing in freshwater and/orscoastal ecosystems contribute significantly to household income and food security. Globally, theslivelihoods of many poor and vulnerable people are dependent on these systems. In recognitionsof the importance of AAS, the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) is undertaking a new generationsof global agricultural research programs on key issues affecting global food security and ruralsdevelopment. The overall goal of the research program is to improve the well-being of peoplesdependent on these systems. Solomon Islands is one of five priority countries in the AAS program,sled by WorldFish. In Solomon Islands, the AAS program operates in the Malaita Hub (MalaitasProvince) and the Western Hub (Western Province). This program and its scoping activities aressummarized in this report.

Foods and diets of communities involved in inland aquaculture in Malaita Province, Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands has a population of just over half a million people, most of whom are rural-based subsistence farmers and fishers who rely heavily on fish as their main animal-source food and for income. The nation is one of the Pacific Island Counties and Territories; future shortfalls in fish production are projected to be serious, and government policy identifies inland aquaculture development as one of the options to meet future demand for fish. In Solomon Islands, inland aquaculture has also been identified as a way to improve ood and nutrition security for people with poor access to marine fish. This report undertaken by a Worldfish study under the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems explores the e potential role of land-based aquaculture of Mozambique tilapia in Solomon Islands as it relates to household food and nutrition security. This nutrition survey aimed to benchmark the foods and diets of households newly involved in small homestead tilapia ponds and their neighboring households in the central region of Malaita, the most populous island of all the provinces in Solomon Islands. Focus group discussions and semistructured interviews were employed in 10 communities (five inland and five coastal), four clinics, and five schools.

Foot contact detection for sprint training

We introduce a new algorithm to automatically identify the time and pixel location of foot contact events in high speed video of sprinters. We use this information to autonomously synchronise and overlay multiple recorded performances to provide feedback to athletes and coaches during their training sessions. The algorithm exploits the variation in speed of different parts of the body during sprinting. We use an array of foreground accumulators to identify short-term static pixels and a temporal analysis of the associated static regions to identify foot contacts. We evaluated the technique using 13 videos of three sprinters. It successfully identifed 55 of the 56 contacts, with a mean localisation error of 1.39±1.05 pixels. Some videos were also seen to produce additional, spurious contacts. We present heuristics to help identify the true contacts. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Development of the 28-foot inboard-engined fishing boat in Uganda

With the encouraging results of trawling experiments in Lake Victoria, it became apparent early in 1969 that commercial trawling on Lake Victoria might well be a viable economic enterprise. Considerable discussion about the optimum size and type of fishing vessel ensued, and the Fisheries Department decided to commission a number of different prototypes for comparative trials.

The feasibility of milkfish (Chanos chanos) aquaculture in Solomon Islands

Fish is crucial to food and nutrition security in Solomon Islands, and demand is expected to increase due to a growing population. However, it is projected that current capture fisheries production will not meet this growing demand. Aquaculture has the potential to mitigate the capture fishery shortfall, and the Government of Solomon Islands is prioritizing aquaculture as a solution to meet future food and income needs. Aquaculture in Solomon Islands is still in early development. Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) is farmed for household consumption, but its prolific reproductive rate and resulting slow growth limit its potential as a commercial aquaculture species. More productive fish species that are not indigenous to Solomon Islands but are successfully farmed overseas could be introduced; however, such a decision needs to take into account the potential ecological or social impacts. For land-based pond aquaculture, the only indigenous species that has been farmed extensively elsewhere is milkfish (Chanos chanos). This report presents a feasibility assessment for milkfish farming in Solomon Islands. It synthesizes the current knowledge about milkfish farming and presents results of a 4-year study on the potential for milkfish aquaculture in Solomon Islands.

Functionally different pads on the same foot allow control of attachment: stick insects have load-sensitive "heel" pads for friction and shear-sensitive "toe" pads for adhesion.

Stick insects (Carausius morosus) have two distinct types of attachment pad per leg, tarsal "heel" pads (euplantulae) and a pre-tarsal "toe" pad (arolium). Here we show that these two pad types are specialised for fundamentally different functions. When standing upright, stick insects rested on their proximal euplantulae, while arolia were the only pads in surface contact when hanging upside down. Single-pad force measurements showed that the adhesion of euplantulae was extremely small, but friction forces strongly increased with normal load and coefficients of friction were [Formula: see text] 1. The pre-tarsal arolium, in contrast, generated adhesion that strongly increased with pulling forces, allowing adhesion to be activated and deactivated by shear forces, which can be produced actively, or passively as a result of the insects' sprawled posture. The shear-sensitivity of the arolium was present even when corrected for contact area, and was independent of normal preloads covering nearly an order of magnitude. Attachment of both heel and toe pads is thus activated partly by the forces that arise passively in the situations in which they are used by the insects, ensuring safe attachment. Our results suggest that stick insect euplantulae are specialised "friction pads" that produce traction when pressed against the substrate, while arolia are "true" adhesive pads that stick to the substrate when activated by pulling forces.

King Solomon's Miners- Starvation and Bioaccumulation? An Environmental Archaeological Investigation in Southern Jordan

Pyatt, B. Barker, G. Birch, P. Gilbertson, D. Grattan, J. Mattingly, D. King Solomon's Miners - Starvation and Bioaccumulation? An Environmental Archaeological Investigation in Southern Jordan. Ecotoxicology and Environmental safety 43, 305-308 (1999) Environmental Research, Section B

For the faith, life of Just de Brenteniáeres, martyred in Korea, March 8, 1866; adapted from the French of C. Appert, by Florence Gilmore.

http://www.archive.org/details/forthefaithlifeo00appeuoft

Examining the effect of exit separation on aircraft evacuation performance using evacuation modelling techniques: "Is the 60 foot rule relevant?"

This paper examines the influence of exit separation, exit availability and seating configuration on aircraft evacuation efficiency and evacuation time. The purpose of this analysis is to explore how these parameters influence the 60 foot exit separation requirement found in aircraft certification rules. The analysis makes use of the airEXODUS evacuation model and is based on a typical wide-body aircraft cabin section involving two pairs of Type-A exits located at either end of the section with a maximum permissible loading of 220 passengers located between the exits. The analysis reveals that there is a complex relationship between exit separation and evacuation efficiency. Indeed, other factors such as exit flow rate and exit availability are shown to exert a strong influence on critical exit separations. A main finding of this work is that for the cabin section examined under certification conditions, exit separations up to 170 feet will result in approximately constant total evacuation times and average personal evacuation times. This practical exit separation threshold is decreased to 114 feet if another combination of exits is selected. While other factors must also be considered when determining maximum allowable exit separations, these results suggest it is not possible to mandate a maximum exit separation without taking into consideration exit type, exit availability and aircraft configuration. This has implications when determining maximum allowable exit separations for wide and narrow body aircraft. It is also relevant when considering the maximum allowable separation between different exit types on a given aircraft configuration.