Sanitation, fish handling and artisanal fish processing within fishing communities: socio-cultural influences

postive transformation of the fisheries sector in Uganda has of recent been scatted by failure to mountain fish quality and safety,akey prerequiste for retaining and gaining fish markets. The social cultural study established the extent to which social cutural practices had affected the levels and the use of sanitation facilities,fish handling facilities and artisanal fish processing techniques and the factors that influenced these practices in the fishing communities of lake victoria. This information is of significance for the purpose of advocacy and mobilization of fishers in order to improve sanitation, fish handling and artisanal fishing processing situation in the fishing communities.

Survey of the regional fish trade

Fish export trade,both regional and international, has significantly contributed to uganda's economic growth and to the livehoods of many Ugandans in terms of revenue and employment. while there is substantive information on local and international fish trade on which decsions could be based to appropriately develop the trade,informatrion on regional fish export trade is lacking and where avaliable,it has not been adequately documented. This report contains the findings of the survey on regional fish trade at the border district of West Nile,South/Western and Eastern regions key markets and selected fish supply beaches on Lake Victoria.

The prediction of hot streak migration in a high-pressure turbine

Accurate predictions of combustor hot streak migration enable the turbine designer to identify high-temperature regions that can limit component life. It is therefore important that these predictions are achieved within the short time scales of a design process. This article compares temperature measurements of a circular hot streak through a turning duct and a research turbine with predictions using a three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solver. It was found that the mixing length turbulence model did not predict the hot streak dissipation accurately. However, implementation of a very simple model of the free stream turbulence (FST) significantly improved the exit temperature predictions on both the duct and research turbine. One advantage of the simple FST model described over more complex alternatives is that no additional equations are solved. This makes the method attractive for design purposes, as it is not associated with any increase in computational time.

Hot streak and vane coolant migration in a downstream rotor

This paper describes a method of improving the cooling of the hub region of high-pressure turbine (HPT) rotor by making better use of the unsteady coolant flows originating from the upstream vane. The study was performed computationally on an engine HPT stage with representative inlet hot streak and vane coolant conditions. An experimental validation study of hot streak migration was undertaken on two low-speed test facilities. The unsteady mechanisms that transport hot and cold fluid within the rotor hub region are first examined. It was found that vortex-blade interaction dominated the unsteady transport of hot and cold fluid in the rotor hub region. This resulted in the transport of hot fluid onto the rotor hub and pressure surface, causing a peak in the surface gas temperatures. The vane film coolant was found to have only a limited effect in cooling this region. A new cooling configuration was thus examined which exploits the unsteadiness in rotor hub to aid transport of coolant towards regions of high rotor surface temperatures. The new coolant was introduced from a slot upstream of the vane. This resulted in the feed of slot coolant at a different phase and location relative to the vane film coolant within the rotor. The slot coolant was entrained into the unsteady rotor secondary flows and transported towards the rotor hub-pressure surface region. The slot coolant reduced the peak time-averaged rotor temperatures by a similar amount as the vane film coolant despite having only a sixth of the coolant mass flow. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.

Thermal characterization of SOI CMOS micro hot-plate gas sensors

This work reports on thermal characterization of SOI (silicon on insulator) CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) MEMS (micro electro mechanical system) gas sensors using a thermoreflectance (TR) thermography system. The sensors were fabricated in a CMOS foundry and the micro hot-plate structures were created by back-etching the CMOS processed wafers in a MEMS foundry using DRIE (deep reactive ion etch) process. The calibration and experimental details of the thermoreflectance based thermal imaging setup, used for these micro hot-plate gas sensor structures, are presented. Experimentally determined temperature of a micro hot-plate sensor, using TR thermography and built-in silicon resistive temperature sensor, is compared with that estimated using numerical simulations. The results confirm that TR based thermal imaging technique can be used to determine surface temperature of CMOS MEMS devices with a high accuracy. © 2010 EDA Publishing/THERMINIC.

Marketing of small indigenous species of fish (SIS) in three selected fish markets of Mymensingh

A socio-economic survey was conducted round the year in three fish markets at Mymensingh, Bangladesh. The selected markets were categorized as rural market (Sutiakhali market), a peri-urban market (Kamal Ranjeet market, BAU) and an urban market (Notun Bazar market, Mymensingh town). It was learnt from the survey that the availability of Small Indigenous Fish Species (SIS) declined to a great extent over the last few years and at presently many of such fish species are either threatened or at the edge of extinction. The supply of SIS was highest in KR market (37% of total) and more or less similar in Notun Bazar and Sutiakhali fish market (25 and 27% respectively). The total supply of SIS fluctuated from 25% to 35% throughout the year in these markets. About 48 SIS were found in the sampled markets over the survey period. The highest number of species (45) was found in KR market followed by Notun Bazar (42) and Sutiakhali (37) fish markets. During the survey, three critically endangered species namely, schilbid catfish, garua catfish and rita were found in these markets. Beside these, other 11 and 10 species were listed to be endangered and vulnerable respectively. The biodiversity of 21 SIS found in three markets were no threat at all. Three species (guntea loach, Indian glass barb and flying barb) were 'data deficient' as reported by the IUCN Red Book (IUCN-Bangladesh 2000). From the supply point of view small prawn, spotted snakehead, stinging catfish, pool barb, striped dwarf catfish, Gangetic mystus, walking catfish and tank goby were the prominent fish. The least available species found in this survey were lesser spiny eel, barred spiny eel, Gangetic ailia, freshwater garfish, zig-zag eel, flying barb, Ganges river sprat, freshwater river shad and dwarf gourami. The weight of SIS available in Notun bazar was highest and nearly double than other two markets. There was no significant difference recorded in the supply of SIS in Sutiakhali and KR markets. The average monthly SIS supply was 185, 192 and 467 kg in KR, Sutiakhali and Notun Bazar, respectively; therefore, the cumulative average supply was 844 kg per month in three markets. The price of SIS ranged widely from taka 50-450/kg depending on species, location of market, time of purchase and the condition of fish. In general small prawn, ticto barb, dwarf gourami, Gangetic leaffish, and Annandale loach were sold at a lower price (ranged taka 50-100/kg) and these species could be considered at the bottom of the market-price list. Other SIS like walking catfish, climbing parch, butter catfish, cotio and schilbid catfish valued as highest price (ranged taka 150-450/kg). There was no specific marketing chain for SIS in Mymensingh region. The components of marketing channels and their expansion varied with seasons and locations. The general pattern, however, was as this - after buying fish from fish farmer/fishermen, middlemen (locally known as Foria) used to buy fish to wholesale market and sell to the wholesalers. The retailers used to buy fish from wholesaler through auction to the highest bidders. The retailers then send the fish to particular market where the fish reached the consumers. The livelihood strategy of SIS retailers in three fish markets showed that socio-economic constraints such as low income, poor educational background, low economic status and lack of capital are the main constrains [sic]. Most of the retailers proposed that government should control the fish price throughout the year, so that the producers can get reasonable and stable price. Construction of cold storage and preservation facilities at market sites, improvement of road and communication, improvement of physical market facilities and reduction of market chain is essential. Credit facilities, improvement of their standard of living, health and sanitary condition, housing condition, children education and access to drinking water facilities were identified as additional aspects to improve socio-economic condition of SIS retailers.

The microstructure and mechanical properties of ball-milled stainless steel powder: The effect of hot-pressing vs. laser sintering

The microstructure and mechanical properties of sintered stainless steel powder, of composition AISI 420, have been measured. Ball-milled powder comprising nanoscale grains was sintered to bulk specimens by two alternative routes: hot-pressing and microlaser sintering. The laser-sintered alloy has a porosity of 6% and comprises a mixture of delta ferrite and tempered martensite, and the relative volume fraction varies along the axis of the specimen due to a thermal cycle that evolves with progressive deposition. In contrast, the hot-pressed alloy has a porosity of 0.7% and exhibits a martensitic lath structure with carbide particles at the boundaries of the prior austenite grains. These differences in microstructure lead to significant differences in mechanical properties. For example, the uniaxial tensile strength of the hot-pressed material is one-half of its compressive strength, due to void initiation at the carbide particles at the prior austenite grain boundaries. Nanoindentation measurements reveal a size effect in hardness and also reveal the sensitivity of hardness to the presence of mechanical polishing and electropolishing. © 2011 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Identification of native American founder mtDNAs through the analysis of complete mtDNA sequences: Some caveats

In this study, a detailed analysis of both previously published and new data was performed to determine whether complete, or almost complete, mtDNA sequences can resolve the long-debated issue of which Asian mtDNAs were founder sequences for the Native American mtDNA pool. Unfortunately, we now know that coding region data and their analysis are not without problems. To obtain and report reasonably correct sequences does not seem to be a trivial task, and to discriminate between Asian-and Native American mtDNA ancestries may be more complex than previously believed. It is essential to take into account the effects of mutational hot spots in both the control and coding regions, so that the number of apparent Native American mtDNA founder sequences is not erroneously inflated. As we report here, a careful analysis of all available data indicates that there is very little evidence that more than five founder mtDNA sequences entered Beringia before the Last Glacial Maximum and left their traces in the current Native American mtDNA pool.

The Gjerstad kiln: a combined hot and cold smoking kiln

A combined hot and cold smoking kiln has been constructed for use at Lake Turkana, Kenya. Used for cold smoking, the kiln's main advantages over the traditional kilns used in this area are its greater smoking capacity and lower firewood consumption. Having the option of using the same smoke house for cold and hot smoking reduces the total construction costs for an operator producing both types of smoke cured product. The hot smoking process was found to require markedly less firewood than cold smoking, a fact of considerable importance in desert or semi-desert areas with sparse vegetation.