Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Remote Regions, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Coconut Island, Hawaii, February 7-9, 2007: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) convened a workshop, sponsored by the Hawaii-Pacific and Alaska Regional Partners, entitled Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Remote Regions at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology from February 7-9, 2007. The workshop was designed to summarize existing passive acoustic technologies and their uses, as well as to make strategic recommendations for future development and collaborative programs that use passive acoustic tools for scientific investigation and resource management. The workshop was attended by 29 people representing three sectors: research scientists, resource managers, and technology developers. The majority of passive acoustic tools are being developed by individual scientists for specific applications and few tools are available commercially. Most scientists are developing hydrophone-based systems to listen for species-specific information on fish or cetaceans; a few scientists are listening for biological indicators of ecosystem health. Resource managers are interested in passive acoustics primarily for vessel detection in remote protected areas and secondarily to obtain biological and ecological information. The military has been monitoring with hydrophones for decades;however, data and signal processing software has not been readily available to the scientific community, and future collaboration is greatly needed. The challenges that impede future development of passive acoustics are surmountable with greater collaboration. Hardware exists and is accessible; the limits are in the software and in the interpretation of sounds and their correlation with ecological events. Collaboration with the military and the private companies it contracts will assist scientists and managers with obtaining and developing software and data analysis tools. Collaborative proposals among scientists to receive larger pools of money for exploratory acoustic science will further develop the ability to correlate noise with ecological activities. The existing technologies and data analysis are adequate to meet resource managers' needs for vessel detection. However, collaboration is needed among resource managers to prepare large-scale programs that include centralized processing in an effort to address the lack of local capacity within management agencies to analyze and interpret the data. Workshop participants suggested that ACT might facilitate such collaborations through its website and by providing recommendations to key agencies and programs, such as DOD, NOAA, and I00s. There is a need to standardize data formats and archive acoustic environmental data at the national and international levels. Specifically, there is a need for local training and primers for public education, as well as by pilot demonstration projects, perhaps in conjunction with National Marine Sanctuaries. Passive acoustic technologies should be implemented immediately to address vessel monitoring needs. Ecological and health monitoring applications should be developed as vessel monitoring programs provide additional data and opportunities for more exploratory research. Passive acoustic monitoring should also be correlated with water quality monitoring to ease integration into long-term monitoring programs, such as the ocean observing systems. [PDF contains 52 pages]

Measures of turbidity in coastal waters, Coconut Island, Oahu, Hawaii, August 31 - September 2, 2005: workshop proceedings

A three day workshop on turbidity measurements was held at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology from August 3 1 to September 2, 2005. The workshop was attended by 30 participants from industry, coastal management agencies, and academic institutions. All groups recognized common issues regarding the definition of turbidity, limitations of consistent calibration, and the large variety of instrumentation that nominally measure "turbidity." The major recommendations, in order of importance for the coastal monitoring community are listed below: 1. The community of users in coastal ecosystems should tighten instrument design configurations to minimize inter-instrument variability, choosing a set of specifications that are best suited for coastal waters. The IS0 7027 design standard is not tight enough. Advice on these design criteria should be solicited through the ASTM as well as Federal and State regulatory agencies representing the majority of turbidity sensor end users. Parties interested in making turbidity measurements in coastal waters should develop design specifications for these water types rather than relying on design standards made for the analysis of drinking water. 2. The coastal observing groups should assemble a community database relating output of specific sensors to different environmental parameters, so that the entire community of users can benefit from shared information. This would include an unbiased, parallel study of different turbidity sensors, employing a variety of designs and configuration in the broadest range of coastal environments. 3. Turbidity should be used as a measure of relative change in water quality rather than an absolute measure of water quality. Thus, this is a recommendation for managers to develop their own local calibrations. See next recommendation. 4. If the end user specifically wants to use a turbidity sensor to measure a specific water quality parameter such as suspended particle concentration, then direct measurement of that water quality parameter is necessary to correlate with 'turbidity1 for a particular environment. These correlations, however, will be specific to the environment in which they are measured. This works because there are many environments in which water composition is relatively stable but varies in magnitude or concentration. (pdf contains 22 pages)

Ecophysiological perspectives of blue-green algal blooms

Blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) have had a profound and unparalled impact on the aquatic environment because of the phenomenon of bloom formation. In many countries, water management is threatened with extensive and persistent noxious blooms of blue-green algae in surface and near-surface mesotrophic and eutrophic waters. In view of this, ecological and physiological factors responsible for blue-green algal dominance are discussed. The implications of cyanobacterial blooms are highlighted and recommendations made to combat this menace

The Coastal Barrier Island Network (CBIN): Future management strategies for barrier islands

Barrier islands are ecosystems that border coastal shorelines and form a protective barrier between continental shorelines and the wave action originating offshore. In addition to forming and maintaining an array of coastal and estuarine habitats of ecological and economic importance, barrier island coastlines also include some of the greatest concentrations of human populations and accompanying anthropogenic development in the world. These islands have an extremely dynamic nature whereby major changes in geomorphology and hydrology can occur over short time periods (i.e. days, hours) in response to extreme episodic storm events such as hurricanes and northeasters. The native vegetation and geological stability of these ecosystems are tightly coupled with one another and are vulnerable to storm-related erosion events, particularly when also disturbed by anthropogenic development. (PDF contains 4 pages)

The island of Kauai, Hawaii's progressive shoreline setback and coastal protection ordinance

Approximately two-thirds of coastal and Great Lakes states have some type of shoreline construction setback or construction control line requiring development to be a certain distance from the shoreline or other coastal feature (OCRM, 2008). Nineteen of 30 coastal states currently use erosion rates for new construction close to the shoreline. Seven states established setback distances based on expected years from the shoreline: the remainder specify a fixed setback distance (Heinz Report, 2000). Following public hearings by the County of Kauai Planning Commission and Kauai County Council, the ‘Shoreline Setback and Coastal Protection Ordinance’ was signed by the Mayor of Kauai on January 25, 2008. After a year of experience implementing this progressive, balanced shoreline setback ordinance several amendments were recently incorporated into the Ordinance (#887; Bill #2319 Draft 3). The Kauai Planning Department is presently drafting several more amendments to improve the effectiveness of the Ordinance. The intent of shoreline setbacks is to establish a buffer zone to protect shorefront development from loss due to coastal erosion - for a period of time; to provide protection from storm waves; to allow the natural dynamic cycles of erosion and accretion of beaches and dunes to occur; to maintain beach and dune habitat; and, to maintain lateral beach access and open space for the enjoyment of the natural shoreline environment. In addition, a primary goal of the Kauai setback ordinance is to avoid armoring or hardening of the shore which along eroding coasts has been documented to ultimately eliminate the fronting beach. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Wilmington gray to blue

Wilmington is situated on the divide of two major watersheds, the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. All surface waters in Wilmington drain to one of these two water bodies and are divided into two groups: tidal creeks and Cape Fear River tributaries. Cape Fear River tributaries drain directly to the Cape Fear River and comprise the western portion of Wilmington’s surface waters. Tidal creeks drain directly into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and make up the eastern portion of Wilmington’s surface waters. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Design of a Recreational Fishing Survey and Mark-Recapture Study for the Blue Crab, Callinectes sapidus, in Chesapeake Bay

The development of bay wide estimates of recreational harvest has been identified as a high priority by the Chesapeake Bay Scientific Advisory Committee (CBSAC) and by the Chesapeake Bay Program as reflected in the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Fishery Management Plan (Chesapeake Bay Program 1996). In addition, the BiState Blue Crab Commission (BBCAC), formed in 1996 by mandate from the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia to advise on crab management, has also recognized the importance of estimating the levels and trends in catches in the recreational fishery. Recently, the BBCAC has adopted limit and target biological reference points. These analyses have been predicated on assumptions regarding the relative magnitude of the recreational and commercial catch. The reference points depend on determination of the total number of crabs removed from the population. In essence, the number removed by the various fishery sectors, represents a minimum estimate of the population size. If a major fishery sector is not represented, the total population will be accordingly underestimated. If the relative contribution of the unrepresented sector is constant over time and harvests the same components of the population as the other sectors, it may be argued that the population estimate derived from the other sectors is biased but still adequately represents trends in population size over time. If either of the two constraints mentioned above is not met, the validity of relative trends over time is suspect. With the recent increases in the human population in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, there is reason to be concerned that the recreational catch may not have been a constant proportion of the total harvest over time. It is important to assess the catch characteristics and the magnitude of the recreational fishery to evaluate this potential bias. (PDF contains 70 pages)

Crystal Coulomb energies: I. Organic donor-acceptor complexes--a review. II. Classical Ewald calculations of the Coulomb binding energy of four donor-acceptor crystals and Wurster's blue perchlorate. III. A rapid-convergence quantum-mechanical formalism for crystal electronic energies

Chapter I

Theories for organic donor-acceptor (DA) complexes in solution and in the solid state are reviewed, and compared with the available experimental data. As shown by McConnell et al. (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S., 53, 46-50 (1965)), the DA crystals fall into two classes, the holoionic class with a fully or almost fully ionic ground state, and the nonionic class with little or no ionic character. If the total lattice binding energy 2ε₁ (per DA pair) gained in ionizing a DA lattice exceeds the cost 2ε_o of ionizing each DA pair, ε₁ + ε_o less than 0, then the lattice is holoionic. The charge-transfer (CT) band in crystals and in solution can be explained, following Mulliken, by a second-order mixing of states, or by any theory that makes the CT transition strongly allowed, and yet due to a small change in the ground state of the non-interacting components D and A (or D⁺ and A^-). The magnetic properties of the DA crystals are discussed.

Chapter II

A computer program, EWALD, was written to calculate by the Ewald fast-convergence method the crystal Coulomb binding energy E_C due to classical monopole-monopole interactions for crystals of any symmetry. The precision of E_C values obtained is high: the uncertainties, estimated by the effect on E_C of changing the Ewald convergence parameter η, ranged from ± 0.00002 eV to ± 0.01 eV in the worst case. The charge distribution for organic ions was idealized as fractional point charges localized at the crystallographic atomic positions: these charges were chosen from available theoretical and experimental estimates. The uncertainty in E_C due to different charge distribution models is typically ± 0.1 eV (± 3%): thus, even the simple Hückel model can give decent results.

E_C for Wurster's Blue Perchl orate is -4.1 eV/molecule: the crystal is stable under the binding provided by direct Coulomb interactions. E_C for N-Methylphenazinium Tetracyanoquino- dimethanide is 0.1 eV: exchange Coulomb interactions, which cannot be estimated classically, must provide the necessary binding.

EWALD was also used to test the McConnell classification of DA crystals. For the holoionic (1:1)-(N,N,N',N'-Tetramethyl-para- phenylenediamine: 7,7,8,8-Tetracyanoquinodimethan) E_C = -4.0 eV while 2ε_o = 4.6₅ eV: clearly, exchange forces must provide the balance. For the holoionic (1:1)-(N,N,N',N'-Tetramethyl-para- phenylenediamine:para-Chloranil) E_C = -4.4 eV, while 2ε_o = 5.0 eV: again EC falls short of 2ε₁. As a Gedankenexperiment, two nonionic crystals were assumed to be ionized: for (1:1)-(Hexamethyl- benzene:para-Chloranil) E_C = -4.5 eV, 2ε_o = 6.6 eV; for (1:1)- (Napthalene:Tetracyanoethylene) E_C = -4.3 eV, 2ε_o = 6.5 eV. Thus, exchange energies in these nonionic crystals must not exceed 1 eV.

Chapter III

A rapid-convergence quantum-mechanical formalism is derived to calculate the electronic energy of an arbitrary molecular (or molecular-ion) crystal: this provides estimates of crystal binding energies which include the exchange Coulomb inter- actions. Previously obtained LCAO-MO wavefunctions for the isolated molecule(s) ("unit cell spin-orbitals") provide the starting-point. Bloch's theorem is used to construct "crystal spin-orbitals". Overlap between the unit cell orbitals localized in different unit cells is neglected, or is eliminated by Löwdin orthogonalization. Then simple formulas for the total kinetic energy Q^(XT)_λ, nuclear attraction [λ/λ]^XT, direct Coulomb [λλ/λ'λ']^XT and exchange Coulomb [λλ'/λ'λ]^XT integrals are obtained, and direct-space brute-force expansions in atomic wavefunctions are given. Fourier series are obtained for [λ/λ]^XT, [λλ/λ'λ']^XT, and [λλ/λ'λ]^XT with the help of the convolution theorem; the Fourier coefficients require the evaluation of Silverstone's two-center Fourier transform integrals. If the short-range interactions are calculated by brute-force integrations in direct space, and the long-range effects are summed in Fourier space, then rapid convergence is possible for [λ/λ]^XT, [λλ/λ'λ']^XT and [λλ'/λ'λ]^XT. This is achieved, as in the Ewald method, by modifying each atomic wavefunction by a "Gaussian convergence acceleration factor", and evaluating separately in direct and in Fourier space appropriate portions of [λ/λ]^XT, etc., where some of the portions contain the Gaussian factor.

Physical characterization of the rack effect and hydrogen bond networks in blue copper proteins

A summary of previous research is presented that indicates that the purpose of a blue copper protein's fold and hydrogen bond network, aka, the rack effect, enforce a copper(II) geometry around the copper(I) ion in the metal site. In several blue copper proteins, the C-terminal histidine ligand becomes protonated and detaches from the copper in the reduced forms. Mutants of amicyanin from Paracoccus denitrificans were made to alter the hydrogen bond network and quantify the rack effect by pK_a shifts.

The pK_a's of mutant amicyanins have been measured by pH-dependent electrochemistry. P94F and P94A mutations loosen the Northern loop, allowing the reduced copper to adopt a relaxed conformation: the ability to relax drives the reduction potentials up. The measured potentials are 265 (wild type), 380 (P94A), and 415 (P94F) mV vs. NHE. The measured pK_a's are 7.0 (wild type), 6.3 (P94A), and 5.0 (P94F). The additional hydrogen bond to the thiolate in the mutants is indicated by a red-shift in the blue copper absorption and an increase in the parallel hyperfine splitting in the EPR spectrum. This hydrogen bond is invoked as the cause for the increased stability of the C-terminal imidazole.

Melting curves give a measure of the thermal stability of the protein. A thermodynamic intermediate with pH-dependent reversibility is revealed. Comparisons with the electrochemistry and apoamicyanin suggest that the intermediate involves the region of the protein near the metal site. This region is destabilized in the P94F mutant; coupled with the evidence that the imidazole is stabilized under the same conditions confirms an original concept of the rack effect: a high energy configuration is stabilized at a cost to the rest of the protein.

Radioaktivität in Fischen aus Bereichen der Nordsee und aus Seegebieten bei den Färöer Inseln und Island

Ziel war es festzustellen, ob in den Fischen bei den Färöern und bei Island noch ein Einfluß der Ableitungen der britischen Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Sellafield in die Irische See nachgewiesen werden kann.

Toxic blue-green algae: The "problem" in perspective

The incidence of blue-green algal blooms and surface scum-formation are certainly not new phenomena. Many British and European authors have been faithfully describing the unmistakable symptoms of blue-green algal scums for over 800 years. There is no disputing that blue-green algal toxins are extremely harmful. Three quite separate categories of compound have been separated: neurotoxins; hepatotoxins and lipopolysaccharides. There is a popular association between blue-green algae and eutrophication. Certainly the main nuisance species - of Microcystis, Anabaena and Aphanizomenon are rare in oligotrophic lakes and reservoirs. Several approaches have been proposed for the control of blue-green algae. Distinction is made between methods for discharging algae already present (eg algicides; straw bales; viruses; parasitic fungi and herbivorous ciliates), and methods for averting an anticipated abundance in the future (phosphorous control, artificial circulation etc).

"Rapid and dramatic changes in vegetation" of a small pond on Holy Island (Northumbria): Chaotic dynamics?

This note describes changes to the relative extent of four structurally dominant submerged macrophytes in a pond on Holy Island National Nature Reserve, Northumbria, between 1991 and 1998. The estimated extent of the four submerged macrophytes and bare substratum between 1991 and 1998 showed dramatic changes with no obvious pattern or periodicity, as well as no identifiable natural or anthropogenic causes. Chaotic variation may be an important character of submerged pond plant populations, so that surveys taken in a single year may give an unreliable picture of plant populations.