Marine Protected Areas: Country Case Studies on Policy, Governance and Institutional Issues

This document presents case studies of the policy, governance and institutional issues of marine protected areas (MPAs) in South America (Northeastern)-Brazil; India, Palau and Senegal. It is the first of four in a global series of case studies on MPAs. An initial volume provides a synthesis and analysis of all the studies. The set of global MPA case studies was designed to close a deficit in information on the governance of MPAs and spatial management tools, within both fisheries management and biodiversity conservation contexts. The studies examine governance opportunities in and constraints on the use of spatial management measures at the national level. They were also designed to inform implementation of the FAO Technical Guidelines on marine protected areas (MPAs) and fisheries, which were developed to provide information and guidance on the use of MPAs in the context of fisheries

Sum of Products of Read-Once Formulas

We study limitations of polynomials computed by depth two circuits built over read-once formulas (ROFs). In particular, 1. We prove an exponential lower bound for the sum of ROFs computing the 2n-variate polynomial in VP defined by Raz and Yehudayoff [CC,2009]. 2. We obtain an exponential lower bound on the size of arithmetic circuits computing sum of products of restricted ROFs of unbounded depth computing the permanent of an n by n matrix. The restriction is on the number of variables with + gates as a parent in a proper sub formula of the ROF to be bounded by sqrt(n). Additionally, we restrict the product fan in to be bounded by a sub linear function. This proves an exponential lower bound for a subclass of possibly non-multilinear formulas of unbounded depth computing the permanent polynomial. 3. We also show an exponential lower bound for the above model against a polynomial in VP. 4. Finally we observe that the techniques developed yield an exponential lower bound on the size of sums of products of syntactically multilinear arithmetic circuits computing a product of variable disjoint linear forms where the bottom sum gate and product gates at the second level have fan in bounded by a sub linear function. Our proof techniques are built on the measure developed by Kumar et al.[ICALP 2013] and are based on a non-trivial analysis of ROFs under random partitions. Further, our results exhibit strengths and provide more insight into the lower bound techniques introduced by Raz [STOC 2004]

Occurrence of Phosphate-Solubilizing Bacteria in Rhizospheric and Pneumatophoric Sediment of Avicennia marina

The present study deals with the isolation and characterization of phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) from Avicennia marina rhizospheric sediment, pneumatophoric sediment and non-rhizospheric sediment. The sampling was carried out in four mangrove forests of Mumbai, India. The physicochemical parameters like pH, electrical conductivity, organic carbon, texture, total Phosphorus (P), inorganic P, organic P, Olsen P, iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc in sediment were analysed along with the isolation and molecular characterization of PSB. Significantly, lower pH was observed in the rhizospheric sediment than in the pneumatophoric and bulk sediment. Abundance of PSB was also found in the rhizospheric zone. This was supported by other physicochemical parameters such as high organic P, Olsen P, and higher bacterial count along with low inorganic P. In this study, 8 PSB were isolated and 16S rDNA sequence revealed that all the isolates belong to the genus Bacillus. Among the PSB isolates, B. subtilis sub. spizizenii TU-B-10 showed significantly higher solubilization activity (85.8±0.0 µg P released per 108 cfu in 72 hrs). The isolates that showed higher phosphate-solubilizing potentials can be explored as phosphatic bio-fertilizer to enhance the agricultural, aquacultural and mangrove productivity