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Fish stocks in many parts of the western Pacific are increasingly being subjected to a variety of environmental and human pressures. Resource managers are responding to the situation by limiting and allocating catch across the various fisheries. There is a corresponding need to appropriately classify fishers and fishing fleets to ensure that all sectors are fairly considered when catch allocation decisions are undertaken in the region. But discrete classification of small-scale fishing sectors is challenging because commercial, recreational, and food-gathering motives often overlap. Moreover, despite the known importance of small-scale fishing in the western Pacific, the manner and extent of such activities are not well understood or thoroughly documented. This paper seeks to elucidate the nature of subsistence or consumption-oriented fishing and its relationship to other forms of small-scale fishing activities in the region. A conceptual framework of potential utility for assessing the degree to which small-scale operations are moving toward or away from subsistence fishing is developed with the intent of optimizing the resource allocation decision-making process. The discussion is based on review of pertinent literature and on findings from research recently conducted in Hawai'i and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands., SUBSISTENCE OR consumption-oriented fishing is a topic of growing interest to fishery managers working in island settings across the western Pacific (here defined as including Hawai'i, Guam, American Samoa, and [...]

Three main concepts relating to risk recreation are: (1) understanding how an individual evaluates a recreational activity; (2) understanding that the reasons individuals initially participate in risk recreation may be different from those which perpetuate participation; and (3) understanding that factors other than the individuals and the activities may affect risk recreation behavior. (JN)

Despite the universal presence of architectural forms in human societies, architecture, as a serious topic of anthropological enquiry, has been somewhat overlooked by the discipline as a whole. This article draws upon an anthropology of architecture as 'process' to explore the controversy involved in a disputed architectural award presented to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Rajasthan, India. The author follows the manner in which the actors involved in the controversy define and construct the situation, in the process bringing to light normally overlooked aspects of development and architecture. In this conceptualisation, the built form is imagined as neither exclusively social nor material but rather processual, in which the currents and paths of myriad relationships turn static constructions into complex spaces of conflict and negotiation. The article concludes that only by paying attention to the material forms of such processes can we account for how certain narratives triumph over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The movement toward catch shares by NOAA Fisheries and fisheries managers worldwide responds to dysfunctional fisheries plagued by a host of interrelated problems including radically shortened seasons, a race to fish, supply gluts, lowered product quality, increased bycatch, safety issues, excess capacity, and lack of profitability. However, the NOAA Catch Shares Policy recognizes that catch shares are not appropriate for every fishery, and others have agreed that the success of catch shares programs depends on their fit with ecological, economic, and social characteristics. This article describes the characteristics of the Hawaii-based deep-set longline fleet, identified by NOAA Fisheries as a possible candidate for catch shares because it operates under a bigeye tuna quota instituted by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. One of the main concerns in the fishery is the potential for closing during the holiday season, a culturally important time for fish consumption in Hawaii. An evaluation of the fishery suggests that many of the problems leading to development of catch shares programs in other fisheries are not present, but that some warning signs exist which could be addressed by catch share programs or other management alternatives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The following paper is based upon fifteen months of participatory ethnographic fieldwork within an NGO in Rajasthan, India. Based within a solar photovoltaic workshop for the production of lanterns and the training of 'solar engineers', the author reflects upon the different kinds of knowledges generated in the workshop and how they are constituted through particular kinds of material artefacts and approaches to learning. Drawing upon an 'after actor-network' approach to knowledge production the author explores the emergent and contingent character of knowledge performed. When knowledge is imagined as fluid like, as something that flows and transmutes with more or less viscosity (Mol and Law 1994), we are perhaps in a better position to conceive of its transformative and generative potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hawai'i-based longline fishing industry has been heavily regulated with little analysis of the resulting social and cultural effects. In 2003-04, the NOAA Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) studied fishermen in the Hawai'i-based longline fleet to develop a comprehensive sociocultural profile of industry participants. One focus of the study was the Filipino crew members, who comprised about three-quarters of the longline crew population working at the time. One researcher, with the assistance of a Filipino interpreter-community liaison, developed oral histories of 145 crew members. Consistent with ethnographic approaches, the oral histories were developed over time, with individuals and small groups, until each crew member's story was fully documented. Much data were collected through participant-observation, as the researcher and interpreter became regular fixtures on the docks for nearly two years. Many of the Filipinos had backgrounds in fishing and had substantial levels of related training, such as marine engineering. Their main incentives for working in the Hawai'i longline industry were the economic benefits and status provided by overseas employment, although most appreciated the fishing lifestyle. Job satisfaction was relatively high; salary levels were acceptable, and there was potential to earn additional income. Despite being confined to the immediate pier area because of their visa status, Filipino crew members derived benefits from several types of social networks and exhibited many characteristics common to communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard technique for measurement of millimeter wave fields utilizes an open-ended waveguide attached to a HP power meter. The alignment of the waveguide with the propagation (K) vector is critical to making accurate measurements. Using this technique, it is difficult and time consuming to make a detailed map of average incident power density over areas of biological interest and the spatial resolution of this instrument does not allow accurate measurements in non-uniform fields. For biological experiments, it is important to know the center field average incident power density and the distribution over the exposed area. Two 4 ft x 4 ft x 1/32 inch sheets of carbon loaded Teflon (CLT) (one 15% carbon and one 25% carbon) were procured and a series of tests to determine the usefulness of CLT in defining fields in the millimeter wavelength range was initiated. Since the CLT was to be used both in the laboratory, where the environment was well controlled, and in the field, where the environment could not be controlled, tests were made to determine effects of change in environmental conditions on ability to use CLT as a millimeter wave dosimeter. The empirical results of this study indicate CLT to be an effective dosimeter for biological experiments both in the laboratory and in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]