The current state of the turbot, Scophthalmus maximus (Linnaeus, 1758), population in the northwestern part of the Black Sea

Turbot is one of the most valuable fish species in the Black Sea commercial fishery. The serious, dramatic depletion of the turbot stock and catches that began in the 1980s was caused by overfishing and poor ecological conditions. The state of the turbot stock began to improve in the northwestern part of the Black Sea in 2016. Landings were at their 30-year maximum in this part of the sea. Catches per unit effort (CPUEs) have been at a stable, high level there for the last few years. Average turbot weight and length have also been increasing. The Stock Synthesis (SS3) framework was used in the stock assessment. According to SS3 analysis, fishing mortality (F) reached the minimum level of 0.29 in 2018. The cumulative SPR (Spawner Potential Rate) index was 0.27, which approximately equaled SPRMSY = 0.25. Thus, currently the turbot stock is mostly moderately exploited at a level close to the management target in the northwestern part of the Black Sea. However, the entire Black Sea population has not fully recovered yet.

Analysis of Hazard Rate of Municipalities in Slovakia in Terms of COVID-19

The coronavirus became a phenomenon in 2020, which is making an unwanted but wide space for the study of various scientific disciplines. The COVID-19 pandemic situation which has reached almost the whole civilized world by its consequences thus offers a unique possibility to analyze the graphic space and the human activities inside it. The aim of this study is to predict and identify the potential rate of threat on the example of COVID-19 in Slovakia through an established model. This model consisted of an assessment of the partial phenomena of exposure, vulnerability, and overall risk. The statistical data used to evaluate these phenomena concerned individual cities in Slovakia. These represent the smallest administrative unit. Indirect methods based on the point method were applied in the paper. The spreading and transfer of the disease was influenced much more by the exposure presented by traffic availability, especially, but also the concentration of inhabitants in the selected locations (shops, cemeteries, and others). In the results, our modeling confirmed the regions with the highest intensity, especially in the districts (Bratislava, Košice, Prešov, and Nitra). The selection of the data and method used in this study together with the results reached and presented may serve as an appropriate tool for the support of decision-making of other measures for the future.

Optimizing the Amplifier Bandwidth for Pulse Reception

<p>Detecting and recognizing pulses is a critical task, in fields as widely separated as telecommunications, lidar, and target illumination. In all cases, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a key parameter that can be used to determine both the potential rate of errors and the probability of correct detection. In this paper the relationship among pulse width, amplifier bandwidth, and SNR is determined through modeling four approximations to pulse shapes and four amplifier lowpass filter configurations. The analysis determined that, given a specific filter and pulse shape, the bandwidth that maximizes SNR is a constant divided by the pulse width. For example, if the pulse has a Gaussian shape and the amplifier incorporates a second-order Chebyshev lowpass filter, this constant is 0.3389. Applying this, if the pulse width is 20 ns the maximum SNR comes for a filter bandwidth of 16.95 MHz, while if the pulse width is 50 µs the SNR is maximized at a 6.778-kHz bandwidth. Passing the signal through a filter also distorts the signal shape; the temporal shift and pulse lengthening are also determined. The calculated values are offered as inputs to a potential trade space that includes SNR, pulse distortion by the filter, and cost.</p>

Optimizing the Amplifier Bandwidth for Pulse Reception

<p>Detecting and recognizing pulses is a critical task, in fields as widely separated as telecommunications, lidar, and target illumination. In all cases, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a key parameter that can be used to determine both the potential rate of errors and the probability of correct detection. In this paper the relationship among pulse width, amplifier bandwidth, and SNR is determined through modeling four approximations to pulse shapes and four amplifier lowpass filter configurations. The analysis determined that, given a specific filter and pulse shape, the bandwidth that maximizes SNR is a constant divided by the pulse width. For example, if the pulse has a Gaussian shape and the amplifier incorporates a second-order Chebyshev lowpass filter, this constant is 0.3389. Applying this, if the pulse width is 20 ns the maximum SNR comes for a filter bandwidth of 16.95 MHz, while if the pulse width is 50 µs the SNR is maximized at a 6.778-kHz bandwidth. Passing the signal through a filter also distorts the signal shape; the temporal shift and pulse lengthening are also determined. The calculated values are offered as inputs to a potential trade space that includes SNR, pulse distortion by the filter, and cost.</p>

Can loss aversion shed light on the deflation puzzle?

This paper argues that the application of loss aversion to wage determination can explain the deflation puzzle: the failure of persistently high unemployment to exert a persistent downward impact on the rate of inflation in money wages. This is an improvement on other theories of the deflation puzzle which simply assume downward wage rigidity, namely the hysteresis theory, the lubrication theory and the efficiency wage theory. The paper presents estimates that support the loss-aversion explanation of the deflation puzzle for both the US and Australia. Furthermore, our estimation approach gives a more precise estimate of the potential rate of unemployment than does the natural rate approach and reveals potential rates of unemployment for the US and Australia at the end of 2017 of about 4 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively.

Erosión hídrica y su relación con el avance de la agricultura en el sudeste bonaerense, Argentina. El caso del partido de Benito Juárez durante las campañas 1989/90, 2002/03 y 2014/15

La erosión hídrica es uno de los fenómenos más significativos de degradación del suelo a nivel mundial. Este trabajo estima la tasa de erosión hídrica actual y potencial y la variación de la pérdida total de suelos agrícolas de las unidades ecológicas del partido de Benito Juárez, para las campañas 1989/90, 2002/03 y 2014/15, estableciendo una relación entre estos valores y el avance agrícola. Metodológicamente, se superpusieron capas de información de trabajos antecedentes, para analizar la transformación de la superficie agrícola en cada unidad ecológica. Luego, se estimaron las tasas de erosión y la pérdida total de suelos; analizando su variación en el mismo lapso temporal y comparando estos valores con los niveles de tolerancia de pérdida de los suelos de la región. Para las 3 campañas, las mayores tasas de erosión corresponden a la unidad “Sierras”; y las mayores pérdidas de suelos a la unidad “Llanura ondulada, suavemente ondulada y deprimida”. Se plantea que existe una relación directa entre los resultados obtenidos y el incremento de la superficie destinada al avance de la agricultura. Finalmente, los datos alcanzados contribuyen al diagnóstico acerca de la sostenibilidad del modelo productivo del Partido, en pos de un correcto ordenamiento ambiental del territorio. Water erosion is one of the most significant soil degradation phenomena worldwide. This work estimates the current and potential rate of water erosion and the variation of the total loss of agricultural soils of the ecological units of the Benito Juárez county, for the 1989/90, 2002/03 and 2014/15 campaigns, establishing a relationship between these values and the agricultural advance. Methodologically, layers of previous information were superimposed to analyze the transformation of the agricultural area in each ecological unit. Then, the rates of erosion and the total loss of soils were estimated; analyzing their variation in the same time lapse and comparing these values with the tolerance levels of loss of soils in the region. For the 3 campaigns, the highest erosion rates correspond to the "Mountain ranges" unit; and the highest soil losses to the "Wavy, gently wavy and depressed plains" unit. It is proposed that there is a direct relationship between the results obtained and the increase in the area destined to the advance of agriculture. Finally, the data reached contribute to the diagnosis about the sustainability of the productive model of the County, in pursuit of a correct environmental territorial ordering.

Erosión hídrica y su relación con el avance de la agricultura en el sudeste bonaerense, Argentina. El caso del partido de Benito Juárez durante las campañas 1989/90, 2002/03 y 2014/15

La erosión hídrica es uno de los fenómenos más significativos de degradación del suelo a nivel mundial. Este trabajo estima la tasa de erosión hídrica actual y potencial y la variación de la pérdida total de suelos agrícolas de las unidades ecológicas del partido de Benito Juárez, para las campañas 1989/90, 2002/03 y 2014/15, estableciendo una relación entre estos valores y el avance agrícola. Metodológicamente, se superpusieron capas de información de trabajos antecedentes, para analizar la transformación de la superficie agrícola en cada unidad ecológica. Luego, se estimaron las tasas de erosión y la pérdida total de suelos; analizando su variación en el mismo lapso temporal y comparando estos valores con los niveles de tolerancia de pérdida de los suelos de la región. Para las 3 campañas, las mayores tasas de erosión corresponden a la unidad “Sierras”; y las mayores pérdidas de suelos a la unidad “Llanura ondulada, suavemente ondulada y deprimida”. Se plantea que existe una relación directa entre los resultados obtenidos y el incremento de la superficie destinada al avance de la agricultura. Finalmente, los datos alcanzados contribuyen al diagnóstico acerca de la sostenibilidad del modelo productivo del Partido, en pos de un correcto ordenamiento ambiental del territorio. Water erosion is one of the most significant soil degradation phenomena worldwide. This work estimates the current and potential rate of water erosion and the variation of the total loss of agricultural soils of the ecological units of the Benito Juárez county, for the 1989/90, 2002/03 and 2014/15 campaigns, establishing a relationship between these values and the agricultural advance. Methodologically, layers of previous information were superimposed to analyze the transformation of the agricultural area in each ecological unit. Then, the rates of erosion and the total loss of soils were estimated; analyzing their variation in the same time lapse and comparing these values with the tolerance levels of loss of soils in the region. For the 3 campaigns, the highest erosion rates correspond to the "Mountain ranges" unit; and the highest soil losses to the "Wavy, gently wavy and depressed plains" unit. It is proposed that there is a direct relationship between the results obtained and the increase in the area destined to the advance of agriculture. Finally, the data reached contribute to the diagnosis about the sustainability of the productive model of the County, in pursuit of a correct environmental territorial ordering.

The Occurrence of Putative Nitric Oxide Dismutase (Nod) in an Alpine Wetland with a New Dominant Subcluster and the Potential Ability for a Methane Sink

Recently, a new oxygenic pathway has been proposed based on the disproportionation of NO with putative NO dismutase (Nod). In addition to a new process in nitrogen cycling, this process provides ecological advantages for the degradation of substrates in anaerobic conditions, which is of great significance for wastewater treatment. However, the Nod distribution in aquatic environments is rarely investigated. In this study, we obtained the nod genes with an abundance of 2.38 ± 0.96 × 105 copies per gram of dry soil from the Zoige wetland and aligned the molecular characteristics in the corresponding Nod sequences. These Nod sequences were not only found existing in NC10 bacteria, but were also found forming some other clusters with Nod sequences from a WWTP reactor or contaminated aquifers. Moreover, a new subcluster in the aquifer-similar cluster was even dominant in the Zoige wetland and was named the Z-aquifer subcluster. Additionally, soils from the Zoige wetland showed a high potential rate (10.97 ± 1.42 nmol of CO2 per gram of dry soil per day) for nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation (N-DAMO) with low abundance of NC10 bacteria, which may suggest a potential activity of Nod in other clusters when considering the dominance of the Z-aquifer subcluster Nod. In conclusion, we verified the occurrence of Nod in an alpine wetland for the first time and found a new subcluster to be dominant in the Zoige wetland. Moreover, this new subcluster of Nod may even be active in the N-DAMO process in this alpine wetland, which needs further study to confirm.