Social objectives of fisheries management: What are managers' priorities?

Increasingly, social considerations are having an influence on fisheries policy as well as day-to-day management decision making. Social objectives, unlike economic or conservation objectives, are often poorly defined in fisheries policy, providing substantial leeway for managers to develop management plans in response to the perceived importance of different social outcomes, and potential inconsistencies between different fisheries and jurisdictions. In this paper, through a literature review and workshop with managers across different Australian jurisdictions, we develop a set of social objectives that may be applicable in Australian fisheries. We assess the importance of these different objectives using the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and find considerable diversity in opinion as to which social objectives fisheries management should prioritise to achieve. This diversity of opinion is not directly related to jurisdiction, but does seem related to the context and social environment in which fisheries managers are operating.

Improving the effectiveness of age-abundance indicators in the management of fisheries in Queensland, Australia

The development of fishery indicators is a crucial undertaking as it ultimately provides evidence to stakeholders about the status of fished species such as population size and survival rates. In Queensland, as in many other parts of the world, age-abundance indicators (e.g. fish catch rate and/or age composition data) are traditionally used as the evidence basis because they provide information on species life history traits as well as on changes in fishing pressures and population sizes. Often, however, the accuracy of the information from age-abundance indicators can be limited due to missing or biased data. Consequently, improved statistical methods are required to enhance the accuracy, precision and decision-support value of age-abundance indicators.

Division of the Salmonella-Containing Vacuole and Depletion of Acidic Lysosomes in Salmonella-Infected Host Cells Are Novel Strategies of Salmonella enterica To Avoid Lysosomes

Salmonella has evolved several strategies to counteract intracellular microbicidal agents like reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. However, it is not yet clear how Salmonella escapes lysosomal degradation. Some studies have demonstrated that Salmonella can inhibit phagolysosomal fusion, whereas other reports have shown that the Salmonella-containing vacuole (SCV) fuses/interacts with lysosomes. Here, we have addressed this issue from a different perspective by investigating if the infected host cell has a sufficient quantity of lysosomes to target Salmonella. Our results suggest that SCVs divide along with Salmonella, resulting in a single bacterium per SCV. As a consequence, the SCV load per cell increases with the division of Salmonella inside the host cell. This demands more investment from the host cell to counteract Salmonella. Interestingly, we observed that Salmonella infection decreases the number of acidic lysosomes inside the host cell both in vitro and in vivo. These events potentially result in a condition in which an infected cell is left with insufficient acidic lysosomes to target the increasing number of SCVs, which favors the survival and proliferation of Salmonella inside the host cell.

Conference Report: International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade Conference (IIFET) 2014

The 17th Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET) was held in Brisbane in July 2014. IIFET is the principal international association for fisheries economics, and the biennial conference is an opportunity for the best fisheries economists in the world to meet and share their ideas. The conference was organised by CSIRO, QUT, UTAS, University of Adelaide and KG Kailis Ltd. This is the first time the conference has been held in Australia. The conferences covered a wide range of topics of relevance to Australia. These included studies of fishery management systems around the world, identified key issues in aquaculture and marine biodiversity conservation, and provided a forum for new modelling and theoretical approaches to analysing fisheries problems to be presented. The theme of the conference was Towards Ecosystem Based Management of Fisheries: What Role can Economics Play? Several sessions were dedicated to modelling socio-ecological systems, and two keynote speakers were invited to present the latest thinking in the area. In this report, the key features of the conference are outlined.

Doing marriage and parenthood: The division of household labour across two life course events

The current study is a longitudinal investigation into changes in the division of household labour across transitions to marriage and parenthood in the UK. Previous research has noted a more traditional division of household labour, with women performing the majority of housework, amongst spouses and couples with children. However, the bulk of this work has been cross-sectional in nature. The few longitudinal studies that have been carried out have been rather ambiguous about the effect of marriage and parenthood on the division of housework. Theoretically, this study draws on gender construction theory. The key premise of this theory is that gender is something that is performed and created in interaction, and, as a result, something fluid and flexible rather than fixed and stable. The idea that couples ‘do gender’ through housework has been a major theoretical breakthrough. Gender-neutral explanations of the division of household labour, positing rational acting individuals, have failed to explicate why women continue to perform an unequal share of housework, regardless of socio-economic status. Contrastingly, gender construction theory situates gender as the key process in dividing household labour. By performing and avoiding certain housework chores, couples fulfill social norms of what it means to be a man and a woman although, given the emphasis on human agency in producing and contesting gender, couples are able to negotiate alternative gender roles which, in turn, feed back into the structure of social norms in an ever-changing societal landscape. This study adds extra depth to the doing gender approach by testing whether or not couples negotiate specific conjugal and parent roles in terms of the division of household labour. Both transitions hypothesise a more traditional division of household labour. Data comes from the British Household Panel Survey, a large, nationally representative quantitative survey that has been carried out annually since 1991. Here, data tracks the same 776 couples at two separate time points – 1996 and 2005. OLS regression is used to test whether or not transitions to marriage and parenthood have a significant impact on the division of household labour whilst controlling for host of relevant socio-economic factors. Results indicate that marriage has no significant effect on how couples partition housework. Those couples making the transition from cohabitation to marriage do not show significant changes in housework arrangements from those couples who remain cohabiting in both waves. On the other hand, becoming parents does lead to a more traditional division of household labour whilst controlling for socio-economic factors which accompany the move to parenthood. There is then some evidence that couples use the site of household labour to ‘do parenthood’ and generate identities which both use and inform socially prescribed notions of what it means to be a mother and a father. Support for socio-economic explanations of the division of household labour was mixed although it remains clear that they, alone, cannot explain how households divide housework.

Reasonability and the Linguistic - Division of Labor in Institutional Work

We examine institutional work from a discursive perspective and argue that reasonability, the existence of acceptable justifying reasons for beliefs and practices, is a key part of legitimation. Drawing on philosophy of language, we maintain that institutional work takes place in the context of ‘space of reasons’ determined by widely held assumptions about what is reasonable and what is not. We argue that reasonability provides the main contextual constraint of institutional work, its major outcome, and a key trigger for actors to engage in it. We draw on Hilary Putnam’s concept ‘division of linguistic labor’ to highlight the specialized distribution of knowledge and authority in defining valid ways of reasoning. In this view, individuals use institutionalized vocabularies to reason about their choices and understand their context with limited understanding of how and why these structures have become what they are. We highlight the need to understand how professions and other actors establish and maintain the criteria of reasoning in various areas of expertise through discursive institutional work.

Doing marriage and parenthood: The division of household labour across two life course events

The current study is a longitudinal investigation into changes in the division of household labour across transitions to marriage and parenthood in the UK. Previous research has noted a more traditional division of household labour, with women performing the majority of housework, amongst spouses and couples with children. However, the bulk of this work has been cross-sectional in nature. The few longitudinal studies that have been carried out have been rather ambiguous about the effect of marriage and parenthood on the division of housework. Theoretically, this study draws on gender construction theory. The key premise of this theory is that gender is something that is performed and created in interaction, and, as a result, something fluid and flexible rather than fixed and stable. The idea that couples 'do gender' through housework has been a major theoretical breakthrough. Gender-neutral explanations of the division of household labour, positing rational acting individuals, have failed to explicate why women continue to perform an unequal share of housework, regardless of socioeconomic status. Contrastingly, gender construction theory situates gender as the key process in dividing household labour. By performing and avoiding certain housework chores, couples fulfill social norms of what it means to be a man and a woman although, given the emphasis on human agency in producing and contesting gender, couples are able to negotiate alternative gender roles which, in turn, feed back into the structure of social norms in an ever-changing societal landscape. This study adds extra depth to the doing gender approach by testing whether or not couples negotiate specific conjugal and parent roles in terms of the division of household labour. Both transitions hypothesise a more traditional division of household labour. Data comes from the British Household Panel Survey, a large, nationally representative quantitative survey that has been carried out annually since 1991. Here, data tracks the same 776 couples at two separate time points - 1996 and 2005. OLS regression is used to test whether or not transitions to marriage and parenthood have a significant impact on the division of household labour whilst controlling for host of relevant socio-economic factors. Results indicate that marriage has no significant effect on how couples partition housework. Those couples making the transition from cohabitation to marriage do not show significant changes in housework arrangements from those couples who remain cohabiting in both waves. On the other hand, becoming parents does lead to a more traditional division of household labour whilst controlling for socio-economic factors which accompany the move to parenthood. There is then some evidence that couples use the site of household labour to 'do parenthood' and generate identities which both use and inform socially prescribed notions of what it means to be a mother and a father. Support for socio-economic explanations of the division of household labour was mixed although it remains clear that they, alone, cannot explain how households divide housework.

A numerical study of division of flow in open channels

A two-dimensional numerical model which employs the depth-averaged forms of continuity and momentum equations along with k-e turbulence closure scheme is used to simulate the flow at the open channel divisions. The model is generalised to flows of arbitrary geometries and MacCormack finite volume method is used for solving governing equations. Application of cartesian version of the model to analyse the flow at right-angled junction is presented. The numerical predictions are compared with experimental data of earlier investigators and measurements made as part of the present study. Performance of the model in predicting discharge distribution, surface profiles, separation zone parameters and energy losses is evaluated and discussed in detail. To illustrate the application of the numerical model to analyse the flow in acute angled offtakes and streamlined branch entries, a few computational results are presented.

Division of Labor in Hand Usage in Free- Ranging Bonnet Macaques, Macaca radiata

Primates exhibit laterality in hand usage either in terms of (a) hand with which an individual solves a task or while solving a task that requires both hands, executes the most complex action, that is, hand preference, or (b) hand with which an individual executes actions most efficiently, that is, hand performance. Observations from previous studies indicate that laterality in hand usage might reflect specialization of the two hands for accomplishing tasks that require maneuvering dexterity or physical strength. However, no existing study has investigated handedness with regard to this possibility. In this study, we examined laterality in hand usage in urban free-ranging bonnet macaques, Macaca radiata with regard to the above possibility. While solving four distinct food extraction tasks which varied in the number of steps involved in the food extraction process and the dexterity required in executing the individual steps, the macaques consistently used one hand for extracting food (i.e., task requiring maneuvering dexterity)the maneuvering hand, and the other hand for supporting the body (i.e., task requiring physical strength)the supporting hand. Analogously, the macaques used the maneuvering hand for the spontaneous routine activities that involved maneuvering in three-dimensional space, such as grooming, and hitting an opponent during an agonistic interaction, and the supporting hand for those that required physical strength, such as pulling the body up while climbing. Moreover, while solving a task that ergonomically forced the usage of a particular hand, the macaques extracted food faster with the maneuvering hand as compared to the supporting hand, demonstrating the higher maneuvering dexterity of the maneuvering hand. As opposed to the conventional ideas of handedness in non-human primates, these observations demonstrate division of labor between the two hands marked by their consistent usage across spontaneous and experimental tasks requiring maneuvering in three-dimensional space or those requiring physical strength. Am. J. Primatol. 76:576-585, 2014. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Asymmetric cell division of granule neuron progenitors in the external granule layer of the mouse cerebellum

The plane of division of granule neuron progenitors (GNPs) was analysed with respect to the pial surface in P0 to P14 cerebellum and the results showed that there was a significant bias towards the plane of cell division being parallel to pial surface across this developmental window. In addition, the distribution of beta-Catenin in anaphase cells was analysed, which showed that there was a significant asymmetry in the distribution of beta-Catenin in dividing GNPs. Further, inhibition of Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) signalling had an effect on plane of cell division. Asymmetric distribution of beta-Catenin was shown to occur towards the source of a localized extracellular cue.

System requirement report for Level 2 – national management institutions, for the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in the Philippines

This report presents the findings from a thorough literature review, workshops, and group and individual interviews conducted by STREAM in the Philippines in November and December 2003. The ambitious scope of the report combined with the limited time frame and funding available to compile it necessitated the extensive use of secondary data, including both published and unpublished material written by staff of the agencies / organisations involved, with very limited editing of material used. All possible efforts were made to generate information in participation with the government institutions responsible for managing the fisheries, and all contributors (as well as many other stakeholders) were provided with multiple opportunities to comment on the report content. The contributors are listed on the front page of the report. (Pdf contains 56 pages).

The role of agricultural co-operatives in the development of fisheries in Nigeria

Problems faced by the fishery sector in Nigeria are examined and the role that agricultural cooperatives play in fishery development considered. The importance of improving the marketing and distribution system through fishermen cooperatives is stressed. It is concluded that for the successful implementation of fishery products, there is need for regular communication, cooperation and collaboration among relative agencies

Review and appraisal of fisheries development efforts in Nigeria

The paper reviews the various fisheries development plans from 1962 to 1985 and highlights major constraints in the development of the Nigerian fishing industry. The objectives of the plans are summarised together with policy measures formulated to achieve them. Major achievements of the plans, causes of failures to achieve plan objectives are given. Recommendations to improve formulation of future plans are summarised

The shape of fisheries to come. Some thoughts on fisheries development and education with special reference to aquaculture

A brief discussion is presented on the current situation regarding world fisheries and the future role of aquaculture. The various components involved in fisheries, and affecting all changes in fisheries through time, include the biology of the species involved, environment, technology/engineering and socio-economics. The importance of education in fisheries and aquaculture development is also examined