Data analysis: Oceans
attract increasing analytic interest. Bloom data analysis. DFO mentions a long list of There is also a significant strand of work
arising from eutrophic nutrient increase is research interests that ranges alphabetically done using mathematical software; marine
at least partially related to human-centred from aquaculture to zone monitoring, and ecosystems are, as Akpalu
9
points out, in a
activity, and has complex mixed effects on in a phased switchover currently in its fifth discussion of Wolfram Mathematica-based
wider biosystems. Those species which feed year the resulting data, users and facilities work on biodiversity in fisheries management,
on the algæ involved also increase, in the involved are being brought under the single ‘complex, and ... ecologically interdependent
short term at any rate; so do those that in information management umbrella. The ... losing a species could produce a cascading
turn feed upon them; but oxygen is depleted range also stretches from a study
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of gene effect on other species’. An example is offered
and light is cut off from lower depths. expression effects in salmon, analysed in by Clemente and others
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in which reduction
Biodiversity is reduced, ecologies overturned Sigmaplot, to a geomorphic model hosted of top level predators leads to a rise in sea
as invasive species gain an advantage, toxins on a high performance computing platform. urchin populations and consequent decline
are released. The consequences range from Fisheries, for that matter, represent a big area in habitat quality. The economic analysis of
ciguatoxin poisoning in human populations in itself. Just the analysis of collateral damage such possible biological futures is often more
to ‘dead zones’ in the marine environment. to marine species, habitats and environment appropriately done in symbolic terms.
With a considerable portion of the earth’s from net fishing looks at a portfolio of Fishery is not the only oceanic harvesting
human population dependent on marine concerns as detailed as injury to juvenile blue process. Then there is the pharmaceuticals
food sources, bloom is a vital research area. swimmer crabs
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or as large as the global threat industry, which does not neglect marine biota
A University of Toronto doctoral thesis to coral reefs. Increasing industrialisation in its endless search for new medically useful
earlier this year
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suggested methods for of fishery extraction in recent decades has molecules. Spanish biopharmaceuticals
integrating high order mathematical models made analytic approaches to management company PharmaMar goes so far as to
for biological and chemical water quality and conservation of stocks essential. Tracking specialise in this sort of marine sourced
with Bayesian methods for a step change and analysis of shoal behaviours is both a search for new cancer treatment leads. Data
improvement in study of the factors lying pragmatic short-term guide to productivity from more than 70k marine organisms are
behind blooms. While these methods were and essential underpinning for fundamental currently banked in the company’s LIMS
applied only to closed systems such as lakes, long-term conservation planning. (Nautilus, again), available for analysis by
the principles could in principle be extended Software in use for this sort of work PharmaMar’s own research staff and linked
to localised oceanic systems at least. A naturally spans the whole gamut of available academic facilities.
marine biologist in Queensland, Australia, products, but some are more dominant than Then there is the prospect of mineral
concerned with fish stocks, discussed huge others. There is an increasing trend away extraction from sea water, once regarded as an
GenStat databases on which continuously from acquisition of larger systems (though uneconomic pipe dream, but now attracting
updated analyses are looping 24 hours a they are used too) towards smaller desktop renewed interest as new technologies and
day, covering bloom in shallows from the solutions. GenStat, with its strong life new shortages change the rules. Tantalising
Antarctic up the Asian Pacific coastlines as sciences history, is popular; so is the spatially synergetic opportunities arise, for instance,
far as the Bering Straits. oriented Systat. from viewing minerals as a side benefit of ➤
Fishery is, for the reason mentioned above,
a prime mover in applied ocean research of
all kinds: even when not obviously linked,
there will often be a connection somewhere
down the line. The scale and scope vary
enormously, from individual researchers
working in spare moments to whole
government-funded networks of private,
public and academic facilities pulling in
a single contractual harness. The analytic
software range is commensurately wide.
One of Thermo Scientific’s customers
for its Nautilus LIMS is Canada’s federal
Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO),
who uses it to manage its marine research
and development programme. Surrounded
on three sides by the world’s longest national
coastline, one of those sides frozen over,
the DFO sees them as a single resource
embracing everything from fundamental
research through fisheries and Inuit rights
schematic illustration of Genie’s structure from Price and yool at the southampton e-science
to the coastguard – which covers a lot of
and Oceanographic centres.
www.scientific-computing.com scientiFic cOMPUtinG WORlD october/november 2009
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SCWoct09 pp08-13 oceans.indd 9 10/1/09 12:40:56 PM
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