Lisa Peterson successfully defended her MS thesis!
On May 1, Lisa Peterson successfully defended her MS thesis, titled Investigating Assumptions Made in the Assessment of Lake Erie Yellow Perch. For the first part of Lisa’s thesis research, she investigated the assumption that there was no movement of yellow perch between the four management units in Lake Erie. She used a statistical catch-at-age model that assumed movement between two of the management units to evaluate the effect this assumption had on the results of the stock assessment (e.g. abundance estimates, catchability). Lisa’s second chapter of her thesis focused on a catch-rate standardization for the Ohio trawl survey data that is used in the stock assessment as an index of yellow perch abundance. She developed a model that took into account different environmental factors to extract a standardized index. These factors included a wind component that incorporated both wind speed and direction, which are not commonly used in catch-rate standardizations. She then compared the standardized index of yellow perch with the non-standardized index to investigate the effect these factors have on catch rates in Lake Erie. Lisa has some edits to make to her thesis before she can submit a final copy to the Michigan State University Graduate School, but these should be completed in early summer. Lisa is continuing on in the Quantitative Fisheries Center as a PhD student and is in the beginning stages of her project. Congratulations Lisa!!!
Read more about her work from the Lake Erie Committee
QFC Computing Resources – 1Q 2014
During the first quarter of 2014 we made two important changes to the QFC computing environment which impacted our computing resource meters. We replaced two older processors running Windows XP with new equipment and Windows 7. Microsoft dropped support of Windows XP in April 2014 leaving users vulnerable to security problems. With the exception of some general use computers, all processors at the QFC are now running fully supported operating systems. In mid-March, we migrated from our hardy but aging server to a new server. The existing QFC web site and FTP hosts were successfully rebuilt on the new server with minimal disruption to online service. The replacement of these three processors by newer equipment increased the total computing resources at the QFC (http://qfc.fw.msu.edu/about.asp). The most significant increase occurred in our hard drive capacity, which increased by 50%, to allow us to keep most of our historical data files online and readily available.
QFC Newsletter 