Some ecological roles of Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious Linn. 1758) in fish production: possibilities for integrated fish-cum Agric production system

The common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious Linn. 1758) contributes to the productivity of aquatic systems where it lives. This paper reviews ecological roles of the hippo in this regard. Desk review of available literature information complemented with field observations were employed in the data collection. The ecological roles of the common hippopotamus being presented draw examples from East, West, Central and South African sub regions. The nutritional importance of the amphibious hippopotamus to rural communities was highlighted. In Southern Ethiopia, the Bodi, Bacha and Mura tribes eat hippo meat and this has led to severe hunting consequences on the wild populations of the animal. The important relationships between the hippopotamus and fish were presented. Hippopotamuses usually defecate in water and their excrements enrich the nutrients in the water resulting in favourable conditions for large fish populations. Some fish, including Labeo spp. were observed to feed on the micro-organisms and algae that grow on the skin of the hippotamus. A strong case was made for hippo-cum-fish integrated farm development in Nigeria based on ecological relationships so observed between the amphibious mammals and fish. This is one of the meeting points of fisheries and wildlife management that should be exploited for the benefits of the teeming Nigerian population

Potentials for marine fish hatchery production in Nigeria

The development of fish hatcheries and fish fingerling production in Nigeria has all along concentrated largely on the freshwater fish species without paying enough attention to the more numerous fish species that abound in our coastal/marine environment. This paper, therefore, tries to highlight some basic technologies (in term of design and management) of marine fish hatchery based on the author's experiences in Southeast Asia. Appropriate adaptable technologies for the production of our indigenous species such as the Snappers, Groupers etc. are also discussed. General recommendations are made for marine fish hatchery development in Nigeria

Impact of radio broadcast on fish production and conservation in Kainji Lake basin

The decline in fishermen catches of Lake kainji, which went down from 28,639.6t in 1970 to 6.048t in 1974 (Ita 1982) prompted the promulgation of fisheries edict banning beach seines and other obnoxious fishing gear by Kebbi and Niger State governments in 1997 as a measure to prevent depletion of fisheries resources in the lake. Radio as a medium of communication was adopted as the method to disseminate information in the fisheries edict to the fisherfolks in order to bring about positive changes. Radio Niger, Koro station, was involved in the broadcast. Fisherfolk listened to the broadcast 32 times a week. Frame survey data and radio impact assessment studies were used to assess the effect of the broadcast on the number of beach seines and other obnoxious fishing gears on the lake which were banned in the fisheries edicts. It was revealed that the number of beach decreased drastically from 582 in 1997 to 122 in 1999 and to only 17 in 2001

Studies of Zγ production and constraints on anomalous triple gauge couplings in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

In this thesis, we test the electroweak sector of the Standard Model of particle physics through the measurements of the cross section of the simultaneous production of the neutral weak boson Z and photon γ, and the limits on the anomalous Zγγ and ZZγ triple gauge couplings h3 and h4 with the Z decaying to leptons (electrons and muons). We analyze events collected in proton-proton collisions at center of mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 inverse femtobarn. The analyzed events were recorded by the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2011.

The production cross section has been measured for hard photons with transverse momentum greater than 15 GeV that are separated from the the final state leptons in the eta-phi plane by Delta R greater than 0.7, whose sum of the transverse energy of hadrons over the transverse energy of the photon in a cone around the photon with Delta R less than 0.3 is less than 0.5, and with the invariant mass of the dilepton system greater than 50 GeV. The measured cross section value is 5.33 +/- 0.08 (stat.) +/- 0.25 (syst.) +/- 0.12 (lumi.) picobarn. This is compatible with the Standard Model prediction that includes next-to-leading-order QCD contributions: 5.45 +/- 0.27 picobarn.

The measured 95 % confidence-level upper limits on the absolute values of the anomalous couplings h3 and h4 are 0.01 and 8.8E-5 for the Zγγ interactions, and, 8.6E-3 and 8.0E-5 for the ZZγ interactions. These values are also compatible with the Standard Model where they vanish in the tree-level approximation. They extend the sensitivity of the 2012 results from the ATLAS collaboration based on 1.02 inverse femtobarn of data by a factor of 2.4 to 3.1.

Some potential occupational and environmental hazards associated with fish pond production in Nigeria

The paper highlights the concept of information and the significance of environmental and occupational hazards associated with pond fish production in Nigeria and discuss the possible options for the ways forward. The major raw material used in fish production system is the organic manure (cow dung, poultry droppings, porcine manure etc) that serves as substrate for heterotrophic production of bacteria and protozoa, which act as food for zooplankton and the fish. The pathogenic organisms (viruses, bacteria, protozoa's, and parasites), are noted for the potential hazard to the fish handlers and consumers. Nine species from seven genera of bacteria associated with fish diseases are found to have association with diseases of human such as typhoid fever, bacillary dysentery and other gastrointestinal tract related problems. Also the environmental contaminants in pond fish production become important because of its significance to consumers' acceptance of the fish products