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Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) are used as cleaner fish in salmon aquaculture to treat sea lice. However, after 18–24 months and reaching 0.4–0.6 kg, the fish is removed from the salmon cage and usually discarded, which raises social, economic, and environmental challenges, as well as ethical concerns. This paper assesses the viability of marketing lumpfish as food by exploring possible products that can be made from the fish in Vietnamese cuisine, and understanding the stakeholder's perception and acceptance of the fish. We used a customer co-creation method to investigate market potential, sending a sample of 45 kg of frozen and whole lumpfish from Norway to Vietnam. Researchers, industrial stakeholders, restaurant chefs, and household consumers collaborated to discuss, process, cook, and taste the fish, and the evaluations were assessed before and after consumption. More than 10 Vietnamese dishes were identified as possible use for lumpfish, including grilled, fried, sour soup, hotpot, and several value-added products. Household consumers and restaurant buyers evaluated the fish positively in terms of sensory quality (taste, color, flavor, size, and texture), but the rough skin and sharp thorn are negative aspects. Individual consumers accept the fish and were willing to buy it if the price is reasonable. In contrast, industrial stakeholders evaluated the lumpfish less favorably, citing its soft and mushy texture, sticky smell, and very low fillet-recovery-ratio (only 15.9% of skinless fillet and 16.7% of kama can be obtained from whole-defrosted lumpfish). They also found that the taste of the fish was not delicious and bitter in some value-added products. In addition, this study found that the information relating to lumpfish as a cleaner fish is not an issue in the Vietnamese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Since the 1960s, pollution of the marine environment has been observed around the world, and a general awareness of the potential environmental hazards from contaminants arose. This general awareness was followed by implementation of environmental regulations at the national and international levels regarding industrial discharges, and forcing the development of management programs to improve the environmental quality. This overview focuses on the status of assessments, regulations, and remediation actions of contaminated marine sediments in four North European countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. Results and discussion: We found that the extent of assessment surveys and the implementation of sediment remediation actions vary between the countries, with Norway the most advanced. Norway has initiated national pilot remediation tests, followed by full-scale site remediation by dredging and in situ capping in several projects along the coast. Sweden is following Norway's example, although with fewer completed projects. In Finland, the tradition of maintenance dredging is still very strong although the main purpose has not been cleanup actions. Accordingly, in Denmark, dredging is primarily used to maintain sailing depths. All four countries have implemented the Water Framework Directive in addition to national regulations that provide the authority for imposing and implementing sediment remediation measures. However, only Norway has implemented a national strategy on remediation of contaminated sediments. Conclusions: This overview highlights the need for enhanced communication and exchange of experiences between the four Nordic countries of concern with regard to sediment remediation strategy and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many languages, including Norwegian, exhibit CVC weight asymmetry, where CVC is heavy but behaves as light word-finally. This asymmetry is proposed to be motivated by facts of phonetic length and human perception. A production experiment in Norwegian shows a parallel proportional increase for the rimes of heavy syllables across positions. A theory of weight is advanced in which a syllable shape in a given position is only heavy if it is, on average, sufficiently proportionally longer than the rime of a CV syllable in the same position. While a CVC syllable reaches this proportional increase threshold non-finally, it fails to do so word-finally. Final lengthening affects word-final syllables, causing there to be a smaller proportional increase between the rime of a final CV and final CVC. A further study finds perception to behave as predicted; that is, larger raw increases are needed to reach a sufficient length for word final syllables to be categorized as heavy. The proportional increase theory of weight provides a phonetically and perceptually motivated explanation for CVC weight asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alien fish species, European minnow ( Phoxinus phoxinus), was recorded in the mountain lake, Øvre Heimdalsvatn, southern Norway, for the first time in 1969. After some years minnows were observed in the diet of brown trout ( Salmo trutta). In 2006, brown trout had significantly higher δ15N values than European minnow, indicating that brown trout holds the top trophic position in the lake food web. The δ15N signatures of brown trout were significantly correlated to fish size, age and mercury concentration, while δ15N signatures in minnows did not show any change with fish size, age and mercury concentrations, indicating that European minnow remain at the same trophic level throughout the life history. The mercury concentrations (mg kg−1 w.w.) in brown trout and minnows were in the range 0.014–0.093 and 0.014–0.16, respectively. For both species, positive relationships between total mercury concentrations and fish length, weight and age were found. Although European minnow was found as prey in brown trout stomachs, minnow had significantly higher mercury concentrations than brown trout. It is most likely that the higher mercury concentrations in the European minnow are due to the high metabolic rate, with more energy spent on maintenance than on growth as a consequence of its small size and very low annual growth rate compared to brown trout. Changes in population densities of both brown trout and European minnow may influence their habitat use, feeding preferences and metabolism, and may thus potentially lead to changes in the mercury loads of both species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]