Rights first, rights forever: small-scale fisheries and fishing communities from a human-rights perspective. A collection of articles from SAMUDRA report

Small-scale and artisanal fisheries contribute about two-thirds of the global fish production destined for direct human consumption. They also accommodate over 90 per cent of those who make their living from fisheries. Women comprise at least half the workforce in small-scale fisheries. Despite the important contributions made by small-scale fisheries to poverty eradication and food security, small-scale fishers and fishworkers continue to be marginalized at different levels. It is in this context that the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines).

Labels or fables? The myth of sustainability: a collection of articles from SAMUDRA Report

Labels or Fables? The Myth of Sustainability examines the costs of certification of global fisheries and how it is allegedly biased towards industrial-scale fisheries. This dossier is a compilation of articles from Samudra Report dealing with the issue of ecolabelling in fisheries.

Intra- and interspecific variation of the CCR5 gene in higher primates

We have evaluated the molecular evolution of the chemokine receptor CCR5 in primates. The chemokine receptor CCR5 serves as a major co-receptor for human immunodeficiency virus/simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV/SIV) infection. Knowledge of evolution of the CCR5 molecule and selection on the CCR5 gene may shed light on its functional role. The comparison of differences between intraspecific polymorphisms and interspecific fixed substitutions provides useful information regarding modes of selection during the course of evolution. There is marked polymorphism in the CCR5 gene sequence within different primate species, whereas sequence divergence between different species is small. By using contingency tests, we compared synonymous (SS) and nonsynonymous (NS) CCR5 mutations occurring within and between a broad range of primates. Our results demonstrate that CCR5 evolution did not follow expectations, of strict neutrality at the level of the whole gene. The proportion of NS to SS at the intraspecific level was significantly higher than that observed at the interspecific level. These results suggest that most CCR5 NS polymorphisms are slightly deleterious. However, at domains more closely correlated with its known biological functions, there was no obvious evidence to support deviation from neutrality.

A paradigm for virus-host coevolution: Sequential counter-adaptations between endogenous and exogenous retroviruses

Endogenous retroviruses ( ERVs) are remnants of ancient retroviral infections of the host germline transmitted vertically from generation to generation. It is hypothesized that some ERVs are used by the host as restriction factors to block the infection o

目标物体尺寸的大小对小鼠空间深度感知的影响

探索了小鼠在排除透视、遮挡等空间深度的线索下,是否是依靠视觉目标的尺寸大小来感知空间深度.小鼠放置于可以调节高度的高台上,高台位于仅底面有光线照明、四周黑暗的实验箱内.将由格子构成底部面板的尺寸设计为小鼠估计高度距离的唯一线索,设置了3个空间尺度的底板,分别按2/3的比例缩小,并设置7个高度.在同一高度下每测试一轮即对底板的尺寸进行随机变换.记录小鼠跳落前在高台上停留的时间,研究小鼠对高度的判断是否受到底板尺寸的影响.结果表明所有大小线索条件下小鼠在高台上停留的时间随高度的增加而延长.在20～30cm的高度范围,小鼠不以大小为线索的信息来判断深度,可能主要以双眼视差产生的深度信息来判断高度.而在小于20cm和大于30cm的高度范围,特别是在更高的距离上如50cm、60cm和70cm,小鼠以目标大小信息为线索来对深度进行判断,以弥补在这些条件下双眼深度信息的不足.在理论上说这是由于小鼠只有三分之一的(中央)视野为双眼视野区.实验的行为范式可以应用到以转基因鼠为模式生物的实验中,以研究此类行为与基因之间的关系.

Designing and testing an advanced pneumatic braking system for heavy vehicles

Heavy goods vehicles exhibit poor braking performance in emergency situations when compared to other vehicles. Part of the problem is caused by sluggish pneumatic brake actuators, which limit the control bandwidth of their antilock braking systems. In addition, heuristic control algorithms are used that do not achieve the maximum braking force throughout the stop. In this article, a novel braking system is introduced for pneumatically braked heavy goods vehicles. The conventional brake actuators are improved by placing high-bandwidth, binary-actuated valves directly on the brake chambers. A made-for-purpose valve is described. It achieves a switching delay of 3-4 ms in tests, which is an order of magnitude faster than solenoids in conventional anti-lock braking systems. The heuristic braking control algorithms are replaced with a wheel slip regulator based on sliding mode control. The combined actuator and slip controller are shown to reduce stopping distances on smooth and rough, high friction (μ = 0.9) surfaces by 10% and 27% respectively in hardware-in-the-loop tests compared with conventional ABS. On smooth and rough, low friction (μ = 0.2) surfaces, stopping distances are reduced by 23% and 25%, respectively. Moreover, the overall air reservoir size required on a heavy goods vehicle is governed by its air usage during an anti-lock braking stop on a low friction, smooth surface. The 37% reduction in air usage observed in hardware-in-the-loop tests on this surface therefore represents the potential reduction in reservoir size that could be achieved by the new system. © 2012 IMechE.

Dietary-morphological relationships of fishes in Liangzi Lake, China

Species in Liangzi Lake were clustered into four trophic groups: Hemiramphus kurumeus and Hemiculter bleekeri bleekeri fed predominantly on terrestrial insects; Carassius auratus auratus and Abbottina rivularis on non-animal food; Hypseleotris swinhonis, Ctenogobius giurinus, Pseudorasbora parva and Toxabramis swinhonis on cladocerans or copepods; Culterichthys erythropterus on decapod shrimps. Gut length, mouth width, mouth height, gill raker length and gill raker spacing, varied widely among species. With the exception of three species pairs (H. swinhonis, C. glurinus; C. erythropterus, H. kurumeus; T. swinhonis, H. bleekeri bleekeri), principal components analysis of morphological variables revealed over-dispersion of species. Canonical correspondence analysis of dietary and morphological data revealed five significant dietary-morphological correlations. The first three roots explained > 85% of the total variance. The first root reflected mainly the relationship of gut length to non-animal feud, with an increase in gut length associated with an increase in non-animal food. The second root was influenced strongly by the relationship of the gill raker spacing to consumption of copepods, with an increase in gill raker spacing associated positively with copepods in the diet. The third root was influenced by the relationship of mouth gape to consumption of fish and decapod shrimps, with an increase in mouth gape associated with more fish and decapod shrimps in the diet. These significant dietary-morphological relationships supported the eco-morphological hypotheses that fish morphology influence food use, and morphological variation is important in determining ecological segregation of co-existing fish species. (C) 2001 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.

A widely tunable continuous-time LPF for a direct conversion DBS Tuner

A continuous-time 7th-order Butterworth Gm-C low pass filter (LPF) with on-chip automatic tuning circuit has been implemented for a direct conversion DBS tuner in a 0.35um SiGe BiCMOS technology. The filter's -3dB cutoff frequency f(0) can be tuned from 4MHz to 40MHz. A novel translinear transconductor (Gm) cell is used to implement the widely tunable and high linear filter. The filter has -0.5dB passband gain, 28nV/Hz(1/2) input referred noise, -2dBVrms passband IIP3, 24dBVrms stopband IIP3. The I/Q LPFs with the tuning circuit draw 16mA (with f(0)=20MHz) from 3.3 V supply, and occupy an area of 0.45 mm(2).

关于极小泄露证明协议的注记

分析了一个极小泄露证明协议的错误 ,给出一个更正的协议 ,并证明了其安全性 .

基于安全操作系统的电子证据获取与存储

基于实时取证的思想,提出了一种安全可取证操作系统(security forensics operating system,简称SeFOS)的概念和实现思路.提出了其总体结构,建立了该系统的取证行为模型,对其取证服务和取证机制进行了分析并作了有关形式化描述,阐述了证据数据的采集和安全保护方法,提出把取证机制置于内核,基于进程、系统调用、内核资源分配和网络数据等获取证据的方法,并通过模拟实验验证了SeFOS的可取证性.可取证操作系统的研究对于进一步研究可取证数据库管理系统(forensic database management system,简称FDBMS)和可取证网络系统(forensic network,简称FNetWork)具有重要意义.