The application of methods of ecosystem analysis to the evaluation of water quality

Guided by experience and the theoretical development of hydrobiology, it can be considered that the main aim of water quality control should be the establishment of the rates of the self-purification process of water bodies which are capable of maintaining communities in a state of dynamic balance without changing the integrity of the ecosystem. Hence, general approaches in the elaboration of methods for hydrobiological control are based on the following principles: a. the balance of matter and energy in water bodies; b. the integrity of the ecosystem structure and of its separate components at all levels. Ecosystem analysis makes possible a revelation of the whole totality of factors which determine the anthropogenic evolution of a water body. This is necessary for the study of long-term changes in water bodies. The principles of ecosystem analysis of water bodies, together with the creation of their mathematical models, are important because, in future, with the transition of water demanding production into closed cycles of water supply, changes in water bodies will arise in the main through the influence of 'diffuse' pollution (from the atmosphere, with utilisation in transport etc.).

Novos territórios da escritura: reflexões sobre exotismo e identidade em Amélie Nothomb e Adriana Lisboa

O exotismo, em sua projeção literária, é um conceito relacionado ao imperialismo e ao relato da aventura. Cabe, assim, questionar o emprego de semelhante conceito na produção literária contemporânea, inserida em um mundo mapeado, cosmopolita e de fronteiras fluidas. No esteio da reflexão sobre o exotismo literário no século XXI, os conceitos de alteridade e de identidade ganham peso, expondo um sujeito multifacetado e descentrado, que se equilibra na corda bamba entre realidade e ficção. Está preparado, assim, o terreno para a transgressão de gêneros canônicos, como a autobiografia, gerando novas perspectivas de abordagem do posicionamento do autor no campo literário e ampliando conceitos como os de autoficção e de espaço biográfico. No mesmo movimento, o fenômeno da desterritorialização conduz autores e leitores a novos espaços, nem sempre físicos, mas talvez propícios a inéditas viagens pelo caminho da arte

Iventividade, atividade de trabalho e transtornos mentais graves: um ensaio no campo da cognição

Esta dissertação consiste em uma investigação acerca do conceito de atividade dirigida, pertencente à Clínica da Atividade e dos Meios de Trabalho, proposta por Y. Clot e D. Faïta, no sentido de verificar a sua pertinência para uma Psicologia da Inventividade. Trata-se da utilização da categoria de ritornelo para analisar os pressupostos teóricos do conceito de atividade dirigida, no que tange à cognição. A categoria ritornelo está relacionada a um conjunto de materiais apontados como relevantes para se pensar a questão da invenção: trata-se da Esquizoanálise, proposta por G. Deleuze & F. Guattari. A investigação foi realizada a partir de um caso clínico observado pelo pesquisador, que acompanhou um usuário de um Serviço de Saúde Mental, do município do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, em seu trabalho como padeiro em uma cooperativa de culinária. Apesar de lidar bem com situações mais rotineiras, esse usuário demonstrava ter muita dificuldade em lidar com as variabilidades do meio, com situações que fugiam à sua rotina, apresentando um nível de ansiedade que o impedia de realizar quaisquer tarefas. Criou-se um projeto de atuação clínica que tinha como foco solicitar que ele explicitasse verbalmente o que o afligia, descrevendo todas as situações ansiogênicas, buscando, juntamente com esse paciente, encaminhamentos para tais situações. Ao final de seis meses, o paciente conseguia lidar com os imprevisíveis pertinentes à atividade, laborativa ou não. Foram realizadas duas análises deste caso clínico. Na primeira, utilizou-se a categoria de ritornelo e na segunda, o conceito de atividade dirigida. Finalmente, a segunda análise foi articulada à primeira, com o objetivo de investigar as possibilidades de sinergia entre uma e outra. Dentre as conclusões, observou-se que a construção de um dispositivo dialógico sobre as dificuldades de lidar com o não-rotineiro elemento inerente à vida, e à vida no trabalho pode ser terapeuticamente frutífero na medida em que sua atividade linguageira acerca das dificuldades vividas apresentou-se como objeto de co-análise, alimentando variações no processo de trabalho. Além disso, ritornelo e atividade dirigida articularam-se no nível dos processos de territorialização e desterritorialização propostos por Deleuze & Guattari. A atividade dirigida auxiliou no sentido de ser uma ferramenta relevante para encontrar outros modos de proceder, conectando distantes gêneros, de modo que o mais pleno faça crescer aquele que se encontra precário, atendendo ao 2 e 3 princípios do rizoma postulados por Deleuze & Guattari.

DNA extraction from formalin-fixed Franciscana tissues

The present paper reports the extraction of DNA from formalin-fixed Pontoporia blainvillei tissues. Following the Vachot and Monerot (1996) protocol, fragmented DNA (300-700bp) was extracted from more than 95% of liver and muscle samples. DNA yield in liver samples was significantly higher than in muscle samples (4.574 ± 1.169mg DNA/mg versus 0.808 ± 0.297mg DNA/mg). Similar results were obtained from nine other species of cetaceans and five species of pinnipeds. It is of special interest to have a method that allows the utilisation of museum specimens not originally preserved for genetic studies, which may include rarely available, declining or extinct species. SPANISH: El presente trabajo reporta la extracción de ADN a partir de tejidos formolizados de Pontoporia blainvillei. Siguiendo el protocolo de Vachot y Monerot (1996) se pudo extraer ADN degradado (300-700pb) en más del 95% de las muestras de hígado y músculo analizadas. El rendimiento en ADN fue significativamente mayor en muestras de hígado que en muestras de músculo (4.574 ± 1.169mg DNA/mg tejido húmedo versus 0.808 ± 0.297mg DNA/mg tejido húmedo). Resultados similares se obtuvieron en otras nueve especies de Cetáceos y cinco de Pinnípedos. Resulta de gran interés contar con un método que permita la utilización de especímenes depositados en museos y que no hayan sido originalmente colectados para estudios genéticos, incluyendo especies de difícil obtención, en franca declinación o extintas.

Lune, Wyre & Furness Fisheries Advisory Committee 6th June, 1974

This is the first report from the Lune, Wyre and Furness Fisheries Advisory Committee meeting, which was held on the 6th June 1974. The report includes sections on fishery byelaws, estimates for the anticipated income and expenditure on fisheries for the current year, the arrangements for the release of freshets to the River Leven in times of drought, and the utilisation of water resources. This section looks at proposed abstractions for the River Lune and Wyre, and the Ullswater and Windermere Pumping Stations. The Fisheries Advisory Committee was part of the Regional Water Authorities, in this case the North West Water Authority. This preceded the Environment Agency which came into existence in 1996.

Lune, Wyre & Furness Fisheries Advisory Committee 9th December, 1974

This is the report from the Lune, Wyre and Furness Fisheries Advisory Committee meeting, which was held on the 9th December 1974. The report looks at information on the Water Bailiffs establishment, including the organisation and the duties of both the Fisheries Inspector and the Senior Bailiff. It also covers the comments from the Regional Fisheries Officer on the report on 'Coarse Fisheries', and the report by the Unit Fisheries Officer on fisheries activities. This looks at coarse fish salvage and stocking, fisheries management, biological work carried out, which include initial studies of the utilisation of sonic tagging methods in the monitoring of salmon in estuaries, fish mortalities, and the fish monitoring figures for areas on the Rivers Lune and Leven. The last section looks at bank erosion on the River Lune. The Fisheries Advisory Committee was part of the Regional Water Authorities, in this case the North West Water Authority. This preceded the Environment Agency which came into existence in 1996.

River Dart Salmon Project. Summary of Phase II report.

This is the River Dart Salmon Project Summary of Phase II Report (2002) by the Westcountry Rivers Trust. The report contains sections on the project introduction, methods, habitat utilisation (predicted densities) and distribution at Walla Brook, Swincombe and Strane, bio-monitoring of water chemistry and suggested action at local, catchment and research scale. The attached maps show spawing, fry and juveniles habitats in the lower or upper Walla Brook.

The River Teign SAP Consultation Document

This is the River Teign Salmon Action Plan Consultation document produced by the Environment Agency in 2003. The report pays attention on the external consultation of the River Teign Salmon Action Plan (SAP). This approach to salmon management within the England and Wales introduces the concept of river-specific Conservation Limits as a method of assessing the status of the salmon stock. The River Teign Salmon Action Plan follows the format of those completed for the Rivers Torridge, Taw and Dart. It is the fourth of eight action plans that will be produced for salmon rivers within the Devon Area Fisheries, Recreation and Biodiversity Team. The River Teign SAP contains a description of the river catchment and highlights particular features that are relevant to the salmon population and the associated fishery. The Teign salmon stock is currently failing to meet its conservation limit. This failure is largely attributed to the reduction in the survival rate during the marine phase of the salmon life cycle. This is likely to constrain stocks to lower levels than have existed historically. Still further catch controls may contribute to a reduction in exploitation rates and allow stocks to recover to meet their conservation limit. Other important actions include the continuation of habitat improvement works which aim to maximise spawning habitat utilisation, spawning success, and juvenile survival and production.

A record production from an integrated farming system utilising sewage enriched water

The results of experiments conducted on a pond dyke (655m²) in the Wastewater Aquaculture Division of the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, Rahara, during 1992-93 for maximising production through optimum utilisation of resources are communicated. Round the year intensive cultivation of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), amaranth (Amaranthus gangeticus and A. viridus), water-bind weed (Ipomea aquatica), Indian spinach (Basella rubra), radish (Raphanus sativum), amaranth (Amaranthus viridis), cauliflower (Brassica oleracia var. votrytis), cabbage (Brassica oleracia var. capitota) and papaya (Carica papaya) was undertaken using the treated sewage water from fish ponds for irrigation. The pond dyke yielded 5,626.5 kg vegetable which worked out to 85.9 tons per ha per year. Multiple cropping with these vegetables excluding papaya on a 460 m² dyke recorded a production of 4,926.5 kg at the rate of 107.1t per ha/yr. An improved yearly net return of about 35% over investment could be achieved through the selection of highly productive and pest resistant vegetable crops of longer duration for integration into the system. Introduction of this type of integrated farming would enhance the overall productivity and returns from farming.

Evaluation of some formulated diets for rearing the post-larvae of Macrobrachium rosenbergii

Macrobrachium rosenbergii post-larvae with an average weight of 6.26 ± 0.23 mg and an average length of 10.67 ± 0.13 mm were fed with one of the five experimental diets having graded levels of lipid (5.0, 7.5, 10.0, 12.5 and 15.0%) to satiation two times a day to study their effect on growth, survival and feed utilisation. The highest weight gain was observed in post-larvae fed 7.5% lipid, although there was no significant difference (p>0.05) between groups fed 7.5 and 10.0% lipid. Similar effect was observed in the specific growth rate and protein efficiency ratio of post-larvae fed the diet with 7.5 and 10.0% lipid. The lowest feed conversion ratio was obtained in postlarvae fed the diet with 7.5% lipid. The survival rates of post-larvae fed on various levels of dietary lipid differed significantly (p<0.05) after 15 days of rearing period. Significantly lower survival was observed in the diet with 15.0% lipid level. Dietary lipid did not significantly affect prawn carcass protein, lipid and ash contents. Based on the data analysis (ANOVA – one way analysis), the dietary lipid requirement for 15 days of nursery rearing of Macrobrachium rosenbergii post-larvae was estimated to be 7.5 to 10.0% under experimental conditions in this study.

East African Freshwater Fisheries Research Organization Annual Report 1972

Feeding habits of many animals have been used widely in animal classifications. This is so, because the type of diet an organism requires demands structural specialisation which will utilise the available resource. Many animals may however have many structural modifications to enable them to be described as omnivourous or generalised feeders such as H. empodisma and H. riponianus (GREENWOOD 1960) which may show varying degrees of structural and adaptational intermediacy between two trophic groups. Generally, however, the diet of many animals including fish changes as the animal grow larger. The change in structural modifications is usually correlated with changes in the diet. In fishes the change may involve change from tricuspid to biscuspid and finally to unicuspid type of teeth. The degree of modification in the structure depends on the diet, thus Haplochromis that feeds on soft tissues of snails only requires modifications in oral dentition while Haplochromis that feeds on both soft tissues and shells of snails require modification in the lower pharyngeal bone for grinding purposes. Other modifications connected with food utilisation may be located in the alimentary canal. (I) The fish species that are commercially exploited are Protopterus aethiopicus, Clarias mossambicus, Tilapia esculenta, Tilapia amphimelas and Tilapia hybrids. The other fish species present in the lake but not commercially exploited are: Gnathonemus sp. Alestes sp. Labeo sp., Barbus paludinoses, Barbus jacksoni, Barbus lineomaculatus, Barbus regersi, Leptogrlanis sp., Schilbe sp., Haplochromis spp. and Hemihaplochromis sp. (2) Protopterus sp. and Clarias sp. are mostly caught with hooks on long lines. There has been a steady increase in number of hooks on the lake. Since the stocks of Protopterus and C/arias in the lake have a limit, we should control the number of hooks used by each of the fishermen in order to avoid overharvesting. (3) All the previous studies on Lake Kitangiri fisheries suggested the use of gill nets with mesh size greater than 88.9 mm in order to avoid the capture of immature Ti/apia spp. But if the fishermen are to obtain economic gains from the fishery, the optimum mesh size for use is 88.9 -101.6 mm. (4) The gillnet is a passive gear with very beneficial selective characteristics. Unfortunately the drive-in fishery which exists on Lake Kitangiri more or less destroys the gillnet selectivity characteristics. It is therefore recommended that the beating of water with poles be discouraged and stopped. (5) There is need for provision of stable fishing canoes to replace the unstable bottle palm dug-out canoes which are currently being used and which are very risky to operate. (6) The fish processing facilities on Lake Kitangiri are still inadequate. Most of the fish is sun dried, Since sun drying is very difficult during the rainy season, most fishermen carry out intensive fishing during the dry season, Concentrating most of the fishing effort in anyone season instead of spreading evenly this effort over the whole year could damage the age structure of the exploitable stocks. (7) There are considerable fluctuations in the volume of water of the lake. The feasibility of regulating the water loss through the effluent Sibiti river should be investigated by the Water Development Department. (8) Damming the Sibiti river is an expensive undertaking and therefore, the Rural Development Bank of Tanzania should be asked to assess the economic feasibility of such a project.

National report of the frame survey 2006 in the Ugandan part of Lake Victoria

Fisheries Frame surveys have been carried out on Lake Victoria biannually since 2000 to determine· the number of fishers, fish landing sites, facilities at the landing sites. Information on the composition fishing crafts, their mode of propulsion, fishing gears and the fish species they target is also collected. This information is used to guide development and management of the lake's fisheries. The results of the four surveys carried out since 2000 show that the number of landing sites has decreased by 24% from 597 in 2000 to 481 in 2006, mainly as result of reorganisation of landing sites into Beach Management Units (BMUs). The fish landing sites continue to have inadequate facilities to service the fisheries industry e.g. in the 2006 survey only 11.2% of landing sites had fish shades; <0.6% had cold rooms; 3.5% had electricity; and only 35.5% had toilet facilities. Similarly, only 11.4% of landing sites had portable water; 2.5% had jetties, 3.7% had 'fish stores; and 36% were accessible by all weather roads. There is need to improve facilities servicing fisheries at landing sites, with major emphasis on sanitary facilities, especially toilets and portable water. The BMUs should be sensitised to prioritise the construction and utilisation of public toilet facilities at their respective landing sites. The ultimate aim should be to have public toilets at all fish landing sites. The trend of the various indicators of fishing effort has continued upwards: The total number of fishers increased by 43.5% from 37,721 in 2004 to 54,148 in 2006 and the number of fishing crafts increased (43.9%) from 16,775 in 2004 to 24,148 in 2006 over the same period. The total number of gillnets increased by 28.6% from 458,597 in 2004 to 589,777 in 2006 and the number of long line hooks increased by 136% from 968,848 to 2,285,609. The number of fishing crafts using outboard engines also increased from 3,173 in 2004 to 5,047 in 2006 suggesting that more fishers were going far in search of fish. There is still a large number of illegal gears especially beach seines, which increased by 58.8% from 954 in 2004 to 1420 in 2006. Efforts to remove these very destructive gears should be stepped up. There was also larger increase in number of illegal gillnets <5 inch mesh size. These increased by 63% from 56,246 in 2004 to 91,740 in 2006 compared with 23.8% increase of gillnets ~5 inch mesh size. There were also large increases in the numbers of gillnets of 5 and 5% inch mesh size, which increased by 48% and 130% from 2004 to 2006 implying a trend towards use of smaller gillnet mesh sizes. The number of traps which are used in shallow vegetated areas, flood plains and river mouths to target tilapiines and riverine species decreased drastically from 5,361 traps in 2004 to only 499 traps in 2006, a decrease of 974%, a phenomenon attributed to the receding water levels which have left the shallow vegetated areas dry. A total of 17,475 fishing crafts, 72% of all fishing crafts, in the Ugandan part of the lake are still using paddles and the. number of parachute crafts is also still very high, (Le. 5,064) comprising a high proportion (21 %) of the total number of fishing. There is need to promote the use of large fishing crafts with sails or a combination of sail and outboard motor. The Mukene fishery in the Ugandan waters of Lake Victoria has remained underdeveloped with only 9% of all fishing crafts operating in this fishery. Also less than 2% of fishing crafts with sails or motor operate in this fishery which implies that it is limited to near shore waters. Effort should be made to develop this fishery as it appears to have high potential, especially in deep offshore waters which are hardly fished.

Techno-economic analysis of production and marketing of marine by-products in India

Marine by-products coming under the ancillary products group found many applications in pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. Although many of these products are fetching very high price at the export market, adequate statistics regarding their current production, marketing and utilisation is lacking. The present analysis deals with the production potential, level of exploitation, uses, export growth rate and potential for the future of some of these marine by-products. The analysis revealed that an estimated quantity of 205 t. of shells, 10 t. of gastropod operculum, 4,932 t. of shark liver oil and 4,384 t. of shark cartilage could be produced annually in India with the current landings. The production potential of chitin is estimated as 3,560 t. from shrimp shell wastes and 1,354 t. from crab shell wastes. The high unit value of different products clearly indicates the scope for their development by evolving appropriate utilisation and marketing strategies.

Deposition and characterisation of ultralow-stress ZnO thin films for application in FBAR-based gravimetric biosensors

Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited at high rates ( > 50 nm min-1) using a unique technique known as high target utilisation sputtering (HiTUS). The films obtained possess good crystallographic orientation, low surface roughness, very low stress and excellent piezoelectric properties. We have utilised the films to develop highly sensitive biosensors based on thickness longitudinal mode (TLM) thin film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs). The FBARs have the fundamental TLM at a frequency near 1.5 GHz and quality factor Q higher than 1,000, which is one of the largest values ever reported for ZnO-based FBARs. Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) solutions with different concentrations were placed on the top of different sets of identical FBARs and their responses to mass-loading from physically adsorbed protein coatings were investigated. These resonators demonstrated a high sensitivity and thus have a great potential as gravimetric sensors for biomedical applications. © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Evolution of suitable type of bottom trawls for the medium size steel trawlers of Orissa Fisheries Department

This paper deals with the results of fishing operations conducted with conventional trawls of size 22.3 - 25.6 m and gear of 32 m long wing and bulged belly designed and developed at the Central Institute of Fishery Technology, from four medium size trawlers of Orissa Fisheries Department during 1970-71 and 1971-72 fishing seasons. By employing suitable and standard size gear there was proper utilisation of the engine power with resultant increase in the total landings of shrimps and bottom and off bottom fishes.