Lessons from the breeding program on common carp in Hungary

Common carp is one of the most important cultured freshwater fish species in the world. Its production in freshwater areas is the second largest in Europe after rainbow trout. Common carp production in Europe was 146,845 t in 2004 (FAO Fishstat Plus 2006). Common carp production is concentrated mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. In Hungary, common carp has been traditionally cultured in earthen ponds since the late 19th century, following the sharp drop in catches from natural waters, due to the regulation of main river systems. Different production technologies and unintentional selection methods resulted in a wide variety of this species. Just before the intensification of rearing technology and the exchange of stocking materials among fish farms (early sixties), “landraces” of carp were collected from practically all Hungarian fish farms into a live gene bank at the Research Institute for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Irrigation (HAKI) at Szarvas (Bakos and Gorda 1995; Bakos and Gorda 2001). In order to provide highly productive hybrids for production purposes starting from 1964, different strains and crosses between Hungarian landraces were created and tested. During the last 40 years, approximately 150 two-, three-, and four-line hybrids were produced. While developing parental lines, methods of individual selection, inbreeding, backcrossing of lines, gynogenesis and sex reversal were used. This breeding program resulted in three outstanding hybrids: “Szarvas 215 mirror” and “Szarvas P31 scaly” for pond production, and “Szarvas P34 scaly” for angling waters. Besides satisfying the needs of industry, the live gene bank helped to conserve the biological diversity of Hungarian carp landraces. Fifteen Hungarian carp landraces are still maintained today in the gene bank. Through exchange programs fifteen foreign carp strains were added to the collection from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Southeast Asia (Bakos and Gorda 2001). Besides developing the methodology to maintain live specimens in the gene bank, the National Carp Breeding Program has been initiated in cooperation with all the key stakeholders in Hungary, namely the National Association of Fish Producers (HOSZ), the National Institute for Agricultural Quality Control (OMMI), and the Research Institute for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Irrigation (HAKI). In addition, methodologies or technologies for broodstock management and carp performance testing have been developed. This National Carp Breeding Program is being implemented successfully since the mid-1990s.

Age determination methods for northwest Atlantic species

The successful application of techniques to enhance detection of age marks in biological specimens is of vital importance in fisheries research. This manual documents age determination techniques used by staff at the Woods Hole Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service. General information on procedures for preparing anatomical structures is described, together with criteria used to interpret growth patterns and assign ages. Annotated photographs of age structures are provided to illustrate criteria. Detailed procedures are given for the following species: Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), pollock (Pollachius virens), silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis), red hake (Urophycis chuss), black sea bass (Centropristis striata), weakfish (Cynoscion regalis), Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus), butterfish (Peprilus triacanthus), redfish (Sebastes fasciatus), summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus), winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), witch flounder (Glyptocephalus cynoglossus), American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides), yellowtail flounder (Limanda ferruginea), surf clam (Spisula solidissima), and ocean quahog (Arctica islandica). (PDF file contains 142 pages.)

A detailed investigation of classification methods for vowel speech imagery recognition

Accurate and fast decoding of speech imagery from electroencephalographic (EEG) data could serve as a basis for a new generation of brain computer interfaces (BCIs), more portable and easier to use. However, decoding of speech imagery from EEG is a hard problem due to many factors. In this paper we focus on the analysis of the classification step of speech imagery decoding for a three-class vowel speech imagery recognition problem. We empirically show that different classification subtasks may require different classifiers for accurately decoding and obtain a classification accuracy that improves the best results previously published. We further investigate the relationship between the classifiers and different sets of features selected by the common spatial patterns method. Our results indicate that further improvement on BCIs based on speech imagery could be achieved by carefully selecting an appropriate combination of classifiers for the subtasks involved.

The lowland dry zone of Sri Lanka: site for study of aquaculture development within farmer-managed irrigation systems and methodology for participatory situation appraisal

The aims of this paper are twofold. Firstly to characterise rural poverty and to give a broad overview of the agro-ecological, climatic and socio-economic conditions in Sri Lanka which shape poverty. Secondly to present the methodology employed to screen suitable field research areas and the techniques subsequently used to carry out Rapid Rural Appraisal in two upper-watersheds villages. Also presented are details of a concurrent stakeholder analysis that aimed to investigate the capacity of secondary stakeholders to promote sustainable aquatic resource development and to invite their participation in the formulation of a participatory research agenda.[PDF contains 58 pages]

The nature of small-scale farmer managed irrigation systems in North West Province, Sri Lanka and potential for aquaculture

RRAs were carried out in two Small Tank Cascade systems (STCs) of North West Province, Sri Lanka (less than 1000 ha total watershed area). A total of 21 tanks and 7 villages were investigated with primary emphasis on two upper watershed communities. The two systems differ primarily in their resource base; namely rainfall, natural forests and proximity to large scale perennial irrigation resources. [PDF contains 86 pages]

Potential for poverty focused integration of aquaculture into irrigation systems in Batticaloa District

The visit highlighted the vital contribution of the inland fisheries sector to provision of basic food security within the uncleared area (farmers report very low consumption frequencies for all other fish or meat protein substitutes). A 30-mile system of Brackish water lagoons which demarcates the cleared and uncleared areas is the main source of retailed fish in the uncleared area. Second in importance is the inland tank fishery, where the bulk of production emanates from 17 major irrigation reservoirs. [PDF contains 29 pages]

On the Selection of Non-Invasive Methods Based on Speech Analysis Oriented to Automatic Alzheimer Disease Diagnosis

The work presented here is part of a larger study to identify novel technologies and biomarkers for early Alzheimer disease (AD) detection and it focuses on evaluating the suitability of a new approach for early AD diagnosis by non-invasive methods. The purpose is to examine in a pilot study the potential of applying intelligent algorithms to speech features obtained from suspected patients in order to contribute to the improvement of diagnosis of AD and its degree of severity. In this sense, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been used for the automatic classification of the two classes (AD and control subjects). Two human issues have been analyzed for feature selection: Spontaneous Speech and Emotional Response. Not only linear features but also non-linear ones, such as Fractal Dimension, have been explored. The approach is non invasive, low cost and without any side effects. Obtained experimental results were very satisfactory and promising for early diagnosis and classification of AD patients.