Aspects of the washout of salmonid eggs. 1. Observations on the physical characteristics of real and artificial eggs, their rate of fall in a water column and their pattern of settlement in an experimental channel

When salmonid redds are disrupted by spates, the displaced eggs will drift downstream. The mean distance of travel, the types of locations in which the eggs resettle and the depth of reburial of displaced eggs are not known. Investigation of these topics under field conditions presents considerable practical problems, though the use of artificial eggs might help to overcome some of them. Attempts to assess the similarities and/or differences in performance between real and artificial eggs are essential before artificial eggs can validly be used to simulate real eggs. The present report first compares the two types of egg in terms of their measurable physical characteristics (e.g. dimensions and density). The rate at which eggs fall in still water will relate to the rate at which they are likely to resettle in flowing water in the field. As the rate of fall will be influenced by a number of additional factors (e.g. shape and surface texture) which are not easily measured directly, the rates of fall of the two types of egg have been compared directly under controlled conditions. Finally, comparisons of the pattern of settlement of the two types of egg in flowing water in an experimental channel have been made. Although the work was primarily aimed at testing the value of artificial eggs as a simulation of real eggs, several side issues more directly concerned with the properties of real eggs and the likely distance of drift in natural streams have also been explored. This is the first of three reports made on this topic by the author in 1984.

Steady surface wave pattern in a shear flow

The subject under investigation concerns the steady surface wave patterns created by small concentrated disturbances acting on a non-uniform flow of a heavy fluid. The initial value problem of a point disturbance in a primary flow having an arbitrary velocity distribution (U(y), 0, 0) in a direction parallel to the undisturbed free surface is formulated. A geometric optics method and the classical integral transformation method are employed as two different methods of solution for this problem. Whenever necessary, the special case of linear shear (i.e. U(y) = 1+ϵy)) is chosen for the purpose of facilitating the final integration of the solution.

The asymptotic form of the solution obtained by the method of integral transforms agrees with the leading terms of the solution obtained by geometric optics when the latter is expanded in powers of small ϵ r.

The overall effect of the shear is to confine the wave field on the downstream side of the disturbance to a region which is smaller than the wave region in the case of uniform flows. If U(y) vanishes, and changes sign at a critical plane y = y_cr (e.g. ϵy_cr = -1 for the case of linear shear), then the boundary of this asymmetric wave field approaches this critical vertical plane. On this boundary the wave crests are all perpendicular to the x-axis, indicating that waves are reflected at this boundary.

Inside the wave field, as in the case of a point disturbance in a uniform primary flow, there exist two wave systems. The loci of constant phases (such as the crests or troughs) of these wave systems are not symmetric with respect to the x-axis. The geometric optics method and the integral transform method yield the same result of these loci for the special case of U(y) = U_o(1 + ϵy) and for large Kr (ϵr ˂˂ 1 ˂˂ Kr).

An expression for the variation of the amplitude of the waves in the wave field is obtained by the integral transform method. This is in the form of an expansion in small ϵr. The zeroth order is identical to the expression for the uniform stream case and is thus not applicable near the boundary of the wave region because it becomes infinite in that neighborhood. Throughout this investigation the viscous terms in the equations of motion are neglected, a reasonable assumption which can be justified when the wavelengths of the resulting waves are sufficiently large.

Wireless optical communication-based spatial pattern

We propose a novel communication technique which utilizes a set of mutually distinguishable optical patterns instead of convergent facula to transmit information. The communication capacity is increased by exploiting the optical spatial bandwidth resources. An optimum detector for this communication is proposed based on maximum-likelihood decision. The fundamental rule of designing signal spatial pattern is formulated from analysis of the probability of error decision. Finally, we present a typical electro-optical system scheme of the proposed communication. (c) 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Multi-channel 2-D pattern transfer model based on imaging optics for submarine laser uplink communication

An optical communication scheme of 2-D pattern transfer based on imaging optics for submarine laser uplink communication (SLUC) is suggested. Unlike the methods aiming at avoiding neighboring crosstalk used in traditional multi-channel optical beam transferring, we make full use of the overlapping of each spreading beam other than controlling divergence effect of each beam to avoid interference noise. The apparent parameters have been introduced to simplify theoretical analysis of optical pattern transfer problem involving underwater condition, with the help of which the complex beam propagation inside two kinds of mediums can be easily reduced to brief beam transfer only inside air medium. In this paper, optical transmission path and receiver terminal optics geometry have been described in detail. The link range equation and system uplink performance analysis have also been given. At last, results of a proof-of-concept experiment indicate good feasibility of the proposed SLUC model. © 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Smoothing the side lobes of a focused pattern by spectral dispersion in the broadband laser

Starting from the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral, the propagation equations of a broadband laser passing through a dispersive lens and a dispersive wedge are derived. Smoothing effect on the side lobes of the focused pattern is achieved as the broadband laser passes through the lens because of the spectral dispersion of the lens. By inserting a dispersive wedge behind the lens, better smoothing effect is realized because a relative position shift between focused patterns of different frequency components is generated due to the spectral dispersion of the wedge. Smoothing effect on the side lobe is obtained even with small bandwidth of the broadband laser as the wedge is used. (c) 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Bertso transformation with pattern-based sampling

This paper presents a method to generate new melodies, based on conserving the semiotic structure of a template piece. A pattern discovery algorithm is applied to a template piece to extract significant segments: those that are repeated and those that are transposed in the piece. Two strategies are combined to describe the semiotic coherence structure of the template piece: inter-segment coherence and intra-segment coherence. Once the structure is described it is used as a template for new musical content that is generated using a statistical model created from a corpus of bertso melodies and iteratively improved using a stochastic optimization method. Results show that the method presented here effectively describes a coherence structure of a piece by discovering repetition and transposition relations between segments, and also by representing the relations among notes within the segments. For bertso generation the method correctly conserves all intra and inter-segment coherence of the template, and the optimization method produces coherent generated melodies.

Application of Entropy and Fractal Dimension Analyses to the Pattern Recognition of Contaminated Fish Responses in Aquaculture

The objective of the work was to develop a non-invasive methodology for image acquisition, processing and nonlinear trajectory analysis of the collective fish response to a stochastic event. Object detection and motion estimation were performed by an optical flow algorithm in order to detect moving fish and simultaneously eliminate background, noise and artifacts. The Entropy and the Fractal Dimension (FD) of the trajectory followed by the centroids of the groups of fish were calculated using Shannon and permutation Entropy and the Katz, Higuchi and Katz-Castiglioni's FD algorithms respectively. The methodology was tested on three case groups of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), two of which were similar (C1 control and C2 tagged fish) and very different from the third (C3, tagged fish submerged in methylmercury contaminated water). The results indicate that Shannon entropy and Katz-Castiglioni were the most sensitive algorithms and proved to be promising tools for the non-invasive identification and quantification of differences in fish responses. In conclusion, we believe that this methodology has the potential to be embedded in online/real time architecture for contaminant monitoring programs in the aquaculture industry.

Gradient force pattern, focal shift, and focal switch in an apodized optical system

In this paper, the evolution of the gradient force pattern, focal shift, and focal switch induced by a three-portion pure phase-shifting apodizer is numerically investigated in detail. The results show that the proposed apodizer may induce tunable gradient force on the particles in the focal region, focal shift, and focal switch. By adjusting the geometrical parameters of the phase-shifting apodizer, multiple traps may occur with changeable distance between them, and the shape of the optical trap also evolves evidently. More interestingly, for certain geometrical parameters of the proposed apodizer, by changing the phase shift of inner annular portion, the considerable focal shift may occur with focal switch accompanying, which is discussed to show that this kind of apodizer may be a very promising method of transporting trapped particles. © 2005 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Fish consumption pattern in major freshwater fisheries provinces of Cambodia

Production and consumption of fish were estimated for a one year period during 1995-96 using a sample of 5 117 households. The sample was taken from a study area covering 83 sample communes in 51 fishing districts belonging to eight freshwater fisheries provinces. About 39% of households in fishing dependent communities were actively involved in fishing. Of the total fishing households, 14% took part in commercial fishing using middle-scale fishing gear. Average annual catch per household for middle-scale and family fishing was 3 319 kg and 647 kg, respectively. Nearly 40% of the fish catch was consumed within the communes. The per capita consumption of fresh fish by fishing households (49.7 kg/yr) was higher than that of non-fishing households (39.9 kg/yr). Including processed fish, the total fish consumption by the fishing dependent communes was estimated at 75.6 kg per capita per annum. Given this high rate of fish consumption, development interventions must consider the role of fisheries in ensuring a sustainable livelihood and food security to Cambodia's growing population.

Effect of planting pattern on shading and phytoplankton photosynthesis in Bangladesh rice-fish farms

In the present study, a Border Planting (BP) pattern recommended by the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council was tested against Regular Planting (RP) to assess the effect, if any, on gross phytoplankton photosynthesis and shading. A Wide Planting (WP) pattern was also included in the trial, as an extreme case, to assess the level of photosynthesis that might be obtained if some of the rice yield was sacrificed. Three rice-planting treatments, each with four replicates, using the rice variety BR16, were undertaken: (1) RP, 26 cm between rows N to S and E to W; (2) BP, 20 cm between rows N to S and alternately 21 cm and 36 cm between rows E, to W; and (3) WP, 66 cm between rows N to S and E to W. BP showed no advantage compared to RP, possibly because the rice variety used was short and thus produced relatively little shading. WP did show a benefit for phytoplankton photosynthesis, but this may not generate an increase in fish yield sufficient to justify the negative impact of rice production.