The "discarding" of fish by commercial fishermen is a term commonly used to describe the practice of throwing unwanted fish back into the sea -- usually dead.
Under the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) discards have historically taken place for three reasons. Firstly, fish are discarded if they are small and under the legal minimum size which fishermen are allowed to land for that species. Second, they are thrown back into the sea if a fisherman's annual quota for that species has already been reached, making it illegal to land it. Lastly, fish are dispensed with if they are of a species which has no commercial market value.
Thankfully, discarding fish will soon become a thing of the past after the UK Government secured a historic victory in Brussels to set firm dates to reform the EU Common Fisheries Policy and introduce a ban on the practice. Hence the wasteful practice of discarding edible fish stocks like herring and mackerel will end from January 2014. A ban for white fish stocks will begin in January 2016.
The legislation will undoubtedly save the lives of many thousands of fish. But what of the scavenging birds that follow the fishing vessels to help themselves to a free lunch? How will they be affected by the move?
That's exactly what Dr. Stephen C. Votier, an Associate Professor in Marine Ecology at the School of Marine Science and Engineering at Plymouth University (Plymouth, UK) wanted to find out. To do so, Dr. Votier and his team attached cameras and GPS systems to ten Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) to provide a unique view of how the seabirds interacted with the fishing vessels.
Results from his research revealed that all the cameras on the birds captured images of large (>15m) boats, but not smaller vessels. Virtually all the vessels were trawlers, and the gannets were almost always accompanied by other scavenging birds. All the birds exhibited an area-restricted search during foraging, but only 42 per cent of such searches were associated with the fishing vessels, indicating that the birds were still foraging naturally.
The research illustrates the fact that those vessels discarding fish provide an important source of food for foraging gannets, but that they will be able to adapt well if discards were to disappear altogether -- if there is sufficient food to meet their nutritional needs.
While Dr. Votier's research has provided a fascinating insight into the foraging habits of seabirds, his technique of equipping birds with cameras and GPS systems might also be used in the future to fight in the battle against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activity, which may still result in a significant amount of discards.
References:
1. A Bird’s Eye View of Discard Reforms: Bird-Borne Cameras Reveal Seabird/Fishery Interactions
2. Historic day as Fisheries Ministers agree a date for discards ban
Related articles from Vision Systems Design that you might also find of interest.
1. Cameras and computers count fish
Researchers at the University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia) led by associate professor Euan Harvey have been awarded a three-year, $450,000 Australian Research Council Linkage grant to develop a vision-based computer algorithm to count and measure fish.
2. Fish processed by vision system
Engineers at the Icelandic firm Valka (Kópavogur, Iceland) have designed a vision-based cutting machine that can cut out pin bones from red fish, as well as trim and portion the fish into fish fillets.
3. A fish tale
To maximize profits, fish farmers are using a machine-vision system and smart software to sort good fish eggs from bad.
Showing posts with label camera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label camera. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Every moment remembered
Many such people, of course, only haul out their smart-phones to take a snap when they feel that the picture that they are taking is important enough to justify doing so. But the folks at Memoto (Linköping, Sweden) believe that because of that, many important moments in an individual's life might well be lost.
To rectify the situation, the engineers there have developed a miniature 36 x 36 x 9 mm wearable camera that a captures images continuously, creating a visual log of the life of the user.
Memoto itself was founded by six Swedish serial entrepreneurs just last year. Martin Källström, formerly founder and CEO of blog search engine Twingly, came up with the concept of the Memoto camera. To develop it further, he recruited his friend Oskar Kalmaru, founder of an online video provider, as well as Björn Wesén, who was, at the time, a freelance electronic design engineer.
The Memoto GPS-enabled weatherproof camera they have created has no buttons. While a user is wearing it, it takes two timed geotagged photos a minute, enabling a user to immediately review when and where he or she was when the image was taken.
Now there are some who might regard such a device as only pandering to the needs of individuals who are egotistical enough to believe that every moment of their lives should be recorded for posterity.
On the other hand, such cameras might prove extremely useful in certain industrial or security applications. I'm sure that many companies, for example, would be only too delighted to attach such cameras to their employees, so they might track their activities on a daily basis. And the police could certainly use them to tag known offenders and capture a visual log of their activities to ensure that they weren’t involved in any nefarious businesses.
If you would like to purchase one of the wearable cameras -- which come in three colors - orange, graphite grey and arctic white -- they can now be pre-ordered at the company web site for the price of $279.00.
Personally, I wouldn't have much use for one, unless I wanted to capture hours of images of the PC screen in front of which I sit for most of the day writing news and features for Vision Systems Design.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Dummies get smart
Any fan of the British TV science fiction series Dr. Who will be only too familiar with one of his oldest arch enemies, a race of creatures called the Autons -- life-sized living showroom dummies that stagger about the streets blowing up anything in their path using weapons concealed within their hands.
When they first appeared on the show back in the 1970s, the Autons created quite a stir amongst the Dr. Who fan base. Despite the fact that they did not look particularly realistic, there was something quite terrifying about their dumb, robotic like movements and expressionless faces that struck fear into the audience at the time.
Since the 1970s, robotics technology has, of course, come a long way. While it might have seemed inconceivable back then that showroom dummies might one day be equipped with any technology to make them more lifelike, or indeed, more intimidating, today it's almost expected of them!
The folks at Kee Square (Milan, Italy) and Almax (Mariano Comense, Italy) a leading manufacturer of mannequins would surely be the first to agree.
For just recently the two companies took the wraps off a new mannequin that embraces an intelligent analytical vision system that can help shop owners across the world "observe" and analyze who is attracted to items in their stores and reveal important details about them such as their age range, gender and race.
The mannequin itself has a camera installed in its head that captures the facial features of people passing through a store -- data which is then analyzed by software to provide statistical and contextual information about them to the store owners. The embedded software can also provide data such as the number of people passing in front of a window and at what times of day they did so.
Fortunately for store customers, the new mannequins are not quite as sophisticated as the Autons in Dr. Who. Although they are somewhat more attractive, they are not, for example, able to move. Nor do they come equipped with any sort of weaponry such as ray guns with which to inflict harm upon innocent shoppers.
But perhaps the best feature about them is that they are made of shock-proof polystyrene and finished with water based paints. That means that when the time comes for them to retire they can be easily recycled into something more useful.
More information on the mannequins can be found here. More information on Dr. Who can be found here.
When they first appeared on the show back in the 1970s, the Autons created quite a stir amongst the Dr. Who fan base. Despite the fact that they did not look particularly realistic, there was something quite terrifying about their dumb, robotic like movements and expressionless faces that struck fear into the audience at the time.
Since the 1970s, robotics technology has, of course, come a long way. While it might have seemed inconceivable back then that showroom dummies might one day be equipped with any technology to make them more lifelike, or indeed, more intimidating, today it's almost expected of them!
The folks at Kee Square (Milan, Italy) and Almax (Mariano Comense, Italy) a leading manufacturer of mannequins would surely be the first to agree.
For just recently the two companies took the wraps off a new mannequin that embraces an intelligent analytical vision system that can help shop owners across the world "observe" and analyze who is attracted to items in their stores and reveal important details about them such as their age range, gender and race.
The mannequin itself has a camera installed in its head that captures the facial features of people passing through a store -- data which is then analyzed by software to provide statistical and contextual information about them to the store owners. The embedded software can also provide data such as the number of people passing in front of a window and at what times of day they did so.
Fortunately for store customers, the new mannequins are not quite as sophisticated as the Autons in Dr. Who. Although they are somewhat more attractive, they are not, for example, able to move. Nor do they come equipped with any sort of weaponry such as ray guns with which to inflict harm upon innocent shoppers.
But perhaps the best feature about them is that they are made of shock-proof polystyrene and finished with water based paints. That means that when the time comes for them to retire they can be easily recycled into something more useful.
More information on the mannequins can be found here. More information on Dr. Who can be found here.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Surf's up
When my nephew left college with a master's degree in computer science and electronic engineering, he was headhunted by more than a few firms, some of which were in the field of engineering and some of which were in the field of financial services.
Being a talented young man, he was faced with a choice -- should he take one of the jobs he was offered by one of the engineering companies, or should he accept a more lucrative position at a financial organization in The Big City.
After deliberating the issue for several days, he decided to let his heart rule his wallet and took a job working for a software development company, rather than swan off to make his fortune working in a profession that was somewhat unrelated to his education.
It's an issue many graduates are faced with. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on their education, they are inevitably drawn to the idea of making as much money as possible to pay off their loans, even if it means leaving the field of engineering to do so.
What brought this issue home to me again this week was a recent article in "The Dartmouth", the daily student newspaper of Dartmouth College, which just happens to be America's oldest college newspaper.
The article -- which was written by Hannah Wang -- detailed the development of an Android application that uses data captured by the camera in a smartphone to analyze a person's driving habits. To do so, the application analyzes drivers' physical motions, such as head turning and blinking rates.
The application came about as the result of a project by a chap called Thomas Bao who graduated this year from the college. Apparently, Bao began the project knowing little about machine learning, computer vision or Java. But that didn't stop him from studying the subject rigorously enough to develop the application.
Since then, Bing You, a visiting researcher from Taiwan's Academia Sinica, has integrated Bao's driver-side app into a larger project called CarSafe, which uses the dual cameras on a smart phone to detect both driver-side and road-side information to alert drivers about potentially dangerous situations, such as unsafe following distances.
Having now left the college, however, the talented Bao has waved goodbye to the engineering profession. According to the article, he is now working at Evolution Capital Management, a hedge fund based in Hawaii.
Now the article, of course, doesn't specifically say why Bao chose to do so. It may have been for financial reasons, or it could have been because he is fond of big wave surfing. But whatever the reason, I think it's a shame that Bao and many other talented folk like him don’t remain in the engineering business like my nephew chose to do.
Reference:
1. Professor creates phone app for safer driving habits
Being a talented young man, he was faced with a choice -- should he take one of the jobs he was offered by one of the engineering companies, or should he accept a more lucrative position at a financial organization in The Big City.
After deliberating the issue for several days, he decided to let his heart rule his wallet and took a job working for a software development company, rather than swan off to make his fortune working in a profession that was somewhat unrelated to his education.
It's an issue many graduates are faced with. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on their education, they are inevitably drawn to the idea of making as much money as possible to pay off their loans, even if it means leaving the field of engineering to do so.
What brought this issue home to me again this week was a recent article in "The Dartmouth", the daily student newspaper of Dartmouth College, which just happens to be America's oldest college newspaper.
The article -- which was written by Hannah Wang -- detailed the development of an Android application that uses data captured by the camera in a smartphone to analyze a person's driving habits. To do so, the application analyzes drivers' physical motions, such as head turning and blinking rates.
The application came about as the result of a project by a chap called Thomas Bao who graduated this year from the college. Apparently, Bao began the project knowing little about machine learning, computer vision or Java. But that didn't stop him from studying the subject rigorously enough to develop the application.
Since then, Bing You, a visiting researcher from Taiwan's Academia Sinica, has integrated Bao's driver-side app into a larger project called CarSafe, which uses the dual cameras on a smart phone to detect both driver-side and road-side information to alert drivers about potentially dangerous situations, such as unsafe following distances.
Having now left the college, however, the talented Bao has waved goodbye to the engineering profession. According to the article, he is now working at Evolution Capital Management, a hedge fund based in Hawaii.
Now the article, of course, doesn't specifically say why Bao chose to do so. It may have been for financial reasons, or it could have been because he is fond of big wave surfing. But whatever the reason, I think it's a shame that Bao and many other talented folk like him don’t remain in the engineering business like my nephew chose to do.
Reference:
1. Professor creates phone app for safer driving habits
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Beetlecams capture wildlife up close
Keen to capture images of animals in their natural habitat in as up-close and personal manner as possible, a UK-based photographic team has taken it upon themselves to develop remote-controlled armored cameras.
The new cameras aren't the first of William and Matthew Burrard-Lucas' efforts to use imaging devices in such a fashion. In fact, it was three years ago when they first came up with the idea of embarking on a project to get unique close-up, ground level photographs of African wildlife.
To do just that, William Burrard-Lucas built the first of the so-called BeetleCams -- a remote controlled buggy with a DSLR camera mounted on top. They pair then travelled to Tanzania and used the buggy to capture photographs of elephants and buffalo. Sadly, however, the BeetleCam was almost destroyed in their only encounter with a lion.
Not entirely satisfied with their efforts, they went about developing lion-proof versions of the BeetleCam -- one with more advanced capabilities and one with an armored shell. They then returned to Africa in 2011 to photograph the lions of the Masai Mara. Once again, their BeetleCam received a battering, but it survived, and they came back with a portfolio of lion photographs that exceeded all their expectations.
And the development of the Beetlecam continues unabated, apparently. William Burrard-Lucas has now created a third generation of BeetleCam which has evolved to take into account the pairs' experiences from previous trips.
But the really good news is that these BeetleCam are now available to purchase by anyone that might also be inspired to take pictures of wildlife in a similar fashion. The bad news is that the starting price for a basic BeetleCam is GBP1,250, which is pretty close to $2000 give or take a few British shillings. Having said that, each of the BeetleCams is custom built to meet the requirements of the user.
The photography duo have stressed that their BeetleCams must be used responsibly. They urge those that might deploy one to respect the animals they are photographing and back off immediately if they think that the BeetleCam might be causing distress to the animals.
I'd buy one myself. But there just aren't enough wild animals in New Hampshire to make it all that worthwhile, unless one counts some of the folks that frequent some of the local watering holes on a Friday night, that is. And I couldn't promise that taking pictures of such people might cause a considerable amount of distress either.
The new cameras aren't the first of William and Matthew Burrard-Lucas' efforts to use imaging devices in such a fashion. In fact, it was three years ago when they first came up with the idea of embarking on a project to get unique close-up, ground level photographs of African wildlife.
To do just that, William Burrard-Lucas built the first of the so-called BeetleCams -- a remote controlled buggy with a DSLR camera mounted on top. They pair then travelled to Tanzania and used the buggy to capture photographs of elephants and buffalo. Sadly, however, the BeetleCam was almost destroyed in their only encounter with a lion.
Not entirely satisfied with their efforts, they went about developing lion-proof versions of the BeetleCam -- one with more advanced capabilities and one with an armored shell. They then returned to Africa in 2011 to photograph the lions of the Masai Mara. Once again, their BeetleCam received a battering, but it survived, and they came back with a portfolio of lion photographs that exceeded all their expectations.
And the development of the Beetlecam continues unabated, apparently. William Burrard-Lucas has now created a third generation of BeetleCam which has evolved to take into account the pairs' experiences from previous trips.
But the really good news is that these BeetleCam are now available to purchase by anyone that might also be inspired to take pictures of wildlife in a similar fashion. The bad news is that the starting price for a basic BeetleCam is GBP1,250, which is pretty close to $2000 give or take a few British shillings. Having said that, each of the BeetleCams is custom built to meet the requirements of the user.
The photography duo have stressed that their BeetleCams must be used responsibly. They urge those that might deploy one to respect the animals they are photographing and back off immediately if they think that the BeetleCam might be causing distress to the animals.
I'd buy one myself. But there just aren't enough wild animals in New Hampshire to make it all that worthwhile, unless one counts some of the folks that frequent some of the local watering holes on a Friday night, that is. And I couldn't promise that taking pictures of such people might cause a considerable amount of distress either.
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