Reproductive biology of the blue swimmer crab (Portunus pelagicus, Decapoda: Portunidae) in five bodies of water on the west coast of Australia

Portunus pelagicus was collected at regular intervals from two marine embayments and two estuaries on the lower west coast of Australia and from a large embayment located approximately 800 km farther north. The samples were used to obtain data on the reproductive biology of this species in three very different environments. Unlike females, the males show a loosening of the attachment of the abdominal flap to the cephalothorax at a prepubertal rather than a pubertal molt. Males become gonadally mature (spermatophores and seminal fluid present in the medial region of the vas deferentia) at a very similar carapace width (CW) to that at which they achieve morphometric maturity, as reflected by a change in the relative size of the largest cheliped. Logistic curves, derived from the prevalence of mature male P. pelagicus, generally had wider confidence limits with morphometric than with gonadal data. This presumably reflects the fact that the morphometric (allometric) method of classifying a male P. pelagicus as mature employs probabilities and is thus indirect, whereas gonadal structure allows a mature male to be readily identified. However, the very close correspondence between the CW50’s derived for P. pelagicus by the two methods implies that either method can be used for management purposes. Portunus pelagicus attained maturity at a significantly greater size in the large embayment than in the four more southern bodies of water, where water temperatures were lower and the densities of crabs and fishing pressure were greater. As a result of the emigration of mature female P. pelagicus from estuaries, the CW50’s derived by using the prevalence of mature females in estuaries represent overestimates for those populations as a whole. Estimates of the number of egg batches produced in a spawning season ranged from one in small crabs to three in large crabs. These data, together with the batch fecundities of different size crabs, indicate that the estimated number of eggs produced by P. pelagicus during the spawning season ranges from about 78,000 in small crabs (CW=80 mm) to about 1,000,000 in large crabs (CW=180 mm).

Age and size composition, growth rate, reproductive biology, and habitats of the West Australian dhufish (Glaucosoma hebraicum) and their relevance to the management of this species

Samples of the commercially and recreationally important West Australian dhufish (Glaucosoma hebraicum) were obtained from the lower west coast of Australia by a variety of methods. Fish <300 mm TL were caught over flat, hard substrata and low-lying limestone reefs, whereas larger fish were caught over larger limestone and coral reef formations. Maximum total lengths, weights, and ages were 981 mm, 15.3 kg, and 39 years, respectively, for females and 1120 mm, 23.2 kg, and 41 years, respectively, for males. The von Bertalanffy growth curves for females and males were significantly different. The values for L∞, k, and t0 in the von Bertalanffy growth equations were 929 mm, 0.111/year, and –0.141 years, respectively, for females, and 1025 mm, 0.111/year, and –0.052 years, respectively, for males. Preliminary estimates of total mortality indicated that G. hebraicum is now subjected to a level of fishing pressure that must be of concern to fishery managers. Glaucosoma hebraicum, which spawns between November and April and predominantly between December and March, breeds at a wide range of depths and is a multiple spawner. The L50’s for females and males at first maturity, i.e. 301 and 320 mm, respectively, were attained by about the end of the third year of life and are well below the minimum legal length (MLL) of 500 mm. Because females and males did not reach the MLL until the end of their seventh and sixth years of life, respectively, they would have had, on average, the opportunity of spawning during four and three spawning seasons, respectively, before they reached the MLL. However, because G. hebraicum caught in water depths >40 m typically die upon release, a MLL is of limited use for conserving this species. Alternative approaches, such as restricting fishing activity in highly fished areas, reducing daily bag limits for recreational fishermen, introducing quotas or revising specific details of certain commercial hand-line licences (or doing both) are more likely to provide effective conservation measures.

Single-photon detection using a quantum dot field effect transistor

A novel device for detection of single photons based on a GaAs/AlGaAs modulation doped field effect transistor (MODFET) which does not rely on avalanche processes is proposed. The optimal channel electron densities and quantum dot parameters for detection of single photons are discussed.

Distinctive Paleo-Indian Migration Routes from Beringia Marked by Two Rare mtDNA Haplogroups

Background: It is widely accepted that the ancestors of Native Americans arrived in the New World via Beringia approximately 10 to 30 thousand years ago (kya). However, the arrival time(s), number of expansion events, and migration routes into the Western

Graphone model interpolation and Arabic pronunciation generation

This paper extends n-gram graphone model pronunciation generation to use a mixture of such models. This technique is useful when pronunciation data is for a specific variant (or set of variants) of a language, such as for a dialect, and only a small amount of pronunciation dictionary training data for that specific variant is available. The performance of the interpolated n-gram graphone model is evaluated on Arabic phonetic pronunciation generation for words that can't be handled by the Buckwalter Morphological Analyser. The pronunciations produced are also used to train an Arabic broadcast audio speech recognition system. In both cases the interpolated graphone model leads to improved performance. Copyright © 2011 ISCA.

Tandem system adaptation using multiple linear feature transforms

Adaptation to speaker and environment changes is an essential part of current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. In recent years the use of multi-layer percpetrons (MLPs) has become increasingly common in ASR systems. A standard approach to handling speaker differences when using MLPs is to apply a global speaker-specific constrained MLLR (CMLLR) transform to the features prior to training or using the MLP. This paper considers the situation when there are both speaker and channel, communication link, differences in the data. A more powerful transform, front-end CMLLR (FE-CMLLR), is applied to the inputs to the MLP to represent the channel differences. Though global, these FE-CMLLR transforms vary from time-instance to time-instance. Experiments on a channel distorted dialect Arabic conversational speech recognition task indicates the usefulness of adapting MLP features using both CMLLR and FE-CMLLR transforms. © 2013 IEEE.

Enduring Borderlands: the Marches of Ireland and Wales in the Early Modern Period

This joint chapter explores similarities and differences between two borderlands within the early modern ‘British’ state – the marches of Ireland and Wales. In some respects, the two regions were very different, most fundamentally because the Irish march remained militarised throughout the Tudor period, while Welsh society was markedly more peaceful. However, there was also much in common. In the later middle ages both marches were frontiers between the expanding Anglo-Normans and native Celtic society. The notion that the march separated ‘civility’ from ‘savagery’ was an enduring one: despite the efforts of the Tudors to impose centralisation and uniformity throughout its territories, there remained institutions, structures of power, and mentalities which ensured that both sets of marches were still in existence by the end of the 16th century. This chapter explores the reasons for the endurance of these borderlands, and indicates how political reforms of the 16th century caused the perception – and sometimes the very location – of the marches to alter.

RABBIT: A Compiler for SCHEME

We have developed a compiler for the lexically-scoped dialect of LISP known as SCHEME. The compiler knows relatively little about specific data manipulation primitives such as arithmetic operators, but concentrates on general issues of environment and control. Rather than having specialized knowledge about a large variety of control and environment constructs, the compiler handles only a small basis set which reflects the semantics of lambda-calculus. All of the traditional imperative constructs, such as sequencing, assignment, looping, GOTO, as well as many standard LISP constructs such as AND, OR, and COND, are expressed in macros in terms of the applicative basis set. A small number of optimization techniques, coupled with the treatment of function calls as GOTO statements, serve to produce code as good as that produced by more traditional compilers. The macro approach enables speedy implementation of new constructs as desired without sacrificing efficiency in the generated code. A fair amount of analysis is devoted to determining whether environments may be stack-allocated or must be heap-allocated. Heap-allocated environments are necessary in general because SCHEME (unlike Algol 60 and Algol 68, for example) allows procedures with free lexically scoped variables to be returned as the values of other procedures; the Algol stack-allocation environment strategy does not suffice. The methods used here indicate that a heap-allocating generalization of the "display" technique leads to an efficient implementation of such "upward funargs". Moreover, compile-time optimization and analysis can eliminate many "funargs" entirely, and so far fewer environment structures need be allocated at run time than might be expected. A subset of SCHEME (rather than triples, for example) serves as the representation intermediate between the optimized SCHEME code and the final output code; code is expressed in this subset in the so-called continuation-passing style. As a subset of SCHEME, it enjoys the same theoretical properties; one could even apply the same optimizer used on the input code to the intermediate code. However, the subset is so chosen that all temporary quantities are made manifest as variables, and no control stack is needed to evaluate it. As a result, this apparently applicative representation admits an imperative interpretation which permits easy transcription to final imperative machine code. These qualities suggest that an applicative language like SCHEME is a better candidate for an UNCOL than the more imperative candidates proposed to date.

Ecofisiologia da soja.

2007

Freedom to learn: a radically revised pedagogy to facilitate lifewide learning in the academic curriculum.

Higher education has progressed fairly steadily to a common pedagogical approach which centres on the idea of alignment. In this arrangement, intended learning outcomes are identified and declared; learning activities which will enable the desired learning and development to be achieved are conceived and undertaken with the support of appropriate and effective teaching; and assessment which calls for these outcomes is (ideally) carefully designed and implemented. All three elements are aligned in advance. The same principles and practices underpinned by notions of alignment have been applied to date in most of the purposeful schemes for personal development planning. In this chapter I argue that lifewide learning, wherein learning and development often occur incidentally in multiple and varied real-world situations throughout an individual’s life course, calls for a different approach, and a different pedagogy. Higher education should therefore visualise lifewide learning as an emergent phenomenon wherein the outcomes of learning emerge later on, and are often unintended. Consequently, they cannot be defined in advance of the activities through which they are formed. The main purpose of this chapter is to offer some practical ideas to support the development of pedagogies that would enable programme designers to embed in their programmes the principle and practice of lifewide education.

Risorse intangibili e imprese familiari: principali contributi sul tema e nuove prospettive di ricerca

Intangible resources are the distinctive factors for the success of businesses (Barney, 1991) and for this reason the literature has paid particular attention to this issue (Barney, 1991; Hall, 1992,1993; Carmeli, 2004; Galbreath, 2005; Hayton, 2005; Norman, Butler, Ranft, 2013). With this thesis I will analyze existing studies on the subject with particular reference to family businesses - ideal forum for the spread of specific intangibles (Ward, 1988; Habbershon, Williams, 1999; Sirmon & Hitt, 2003; Huybrechts et al., 2011; Rose, Howorth & Discua Cruz, 2014), in order to identify the main areas of research and new research perspectives. Through a narrative review on the general theme of intangible resources, bibliometric analysis of the contributions that jointly address the intangibles and family businesses and co-citation analysis for the definition of the intellectual structure of the studies on the intangible resources in family firms is reached an in-depth study of the issue with relevant academic and practical implications.

The Failure of American and British Propaganda in the Arab Middle East, 1945-1957: Unconquerable Minds

Vaughan, J. (2005). The Failure of American and British Propaganda in the Arab Middle East, 1945-1957: Unconquerable Minds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. RAE2008