Appendix 2.1  Medits Steering Committee. Meeting report
Pisa, the 18th March 1998

The Medits Steering Committee has met in Pisa the 18th March 1998 with the participants named below:

 

BERTRAND  Jacques (chairman)	France
GIL DE SOLA  Luis	Spain
TSERPES  George	Greece
TURSI  Angelo	Italy
SOUPLET  Arnauld	France
RELINI  Giulio	Italy
FIORENTINI  Loris	Italy
CERVEK Stanko	Slovenia
JUKIC-PELADIC Stjepan	Croatia
PAPACONSTANTINOU  Costas	Greece
POLITOU  Chrissi-Yianna	Greece
KALLIANIOTIS  Argyris	Greece
ARDIZZONE  Giani	Italy
LEVI  Dino	Italy

 

The chairman has opened the meeting and made the apologies for some colleagues who intended to participate but were unable to join the meeting.

The meeting has progressed on the agenda presented below.

1.     Final Medits 1996 and 1997 report

Thanks to the efficient contribution of each of the partners, the common final report has been prepared by the 15th of January 1998. This provisional report has been sent by the co-ordinator to the Commission the 23rd of January 1997. For the time being, we are still waiting for the approval of this document. It has been  reminded that each of the main partners (Spain, Italy and Greece) has to sent to the Commission its own final report to complete the project.

2.     Organisation of the 1998 Medits survey

2.1     Temperature recorder

During the future Medits surveys, the sea temperature will be recorded during each haul. As a conclusion of a survey on the available devices, three systems have been preselected from a list of 13 proposals (Seamon CDT by Hugrun, Iceland; P2TLL600 by Micrel, France and Minilog TDR by Vemco, Canada). Finally, the Steering Committee has decided to adopt the Minilog TDR by Vemco. The co-ordinators have been invited to provide this equipment for each of the vessels involved in the Medits ‘98 survey.

2.2     Extension of the area

Contacts have been managed by the SIBM with Malta for an enlargement of the Medits ‘98 survey in the Malta area. For the time being, these relationships have not been concluded.

2.3     New vessels

Some changes in the vessels used for the survey will occur in 1998. The commercial vessels used in the M4 area (Italy and Albania) and in the M5 area (Italy, Croatia and Slovenia) will be replaced by new ones. In Greece, 18 stations will be added in the Ionian Sea to improve the sampling scheme in this area. To limit the duration of the survey, three commercial vessels will be used in Greece. They will be managed respectively by the NCMR (Athens) for the Ionian Sea and the Argosaronic Gulf, by the FRI (Kavala) for the northern Aegean Sea and by the IMBC (Iraklion) for the southern Aegean Sea. These vessels will be different from those used during the previous surveys.

2.4     Exchange of scientists

The Steering Committee has reminded its will to favour the exchanges of scientists aboard the vessels and in the laboratories within the programme. The organisation of such mobility will be left to the initiative of the co-ordinators.

2.5     Management of the data

The same schedule as for the 1997 survey is foreseen in 1998. The transfert of the data from the regional teams to the co-ordinator should be finished by the end of September 1998 and a general meeting will be held in November 1998.

3.     Review of the coding used in the Medits programme

3.1     Temperature

The temperatures which will be recorded at each haul will be included in additional files. C.Y. Politou has been invited to propose a format for these new files, referring to the format available from the Minilog recorder. It has been expected that this proposal will be available by the 15th of April 1998.

3.2     Species list (FM list)

For the time being, the FM list contains more than 600 species. The Steering Committee has considered that the aim of the surveys was not to go towards an exhaustive analysis of the contains of the hauls. He has decided that only species which should really offer an interest related to fisheries in at least one sub-area will be added in the list from now.

4.     Checking of the Medits data

Generally, the quality of the basic data files sent by the teams involved in the Medits programme to be included in the common data bank has been strongly improving from one year to the next. Nevertheless, during the validation of the Medits ‘97 data, it has been found that some errors which could be identified by a routine checking were still remaining in the exchange files. For this reason, A. Souplet has included a complementary checking in the CHECKMED program. A new version of this program (CHKMED2) has been presented to the Steering Committee (appendix 2.1.1). A. Souplet will send this software by e-mail to each of the Steering Committee members before the beginning of the Medits ‘98 survey.

5.     Progress of the Medits Data Management System (MDBS) project

The co-ordinator of the project, C.Y. Politou, has informed the SC that a first version of the software has been sent for validation to the participants in the project (cf. the Madrid meeting report). The conclusions of this analysis were waited by the end of March 1998.

The development of the software has been continued during the last few months. A demonstration of the present version of this software has been done to the SC by Iannis Dankos during the present meeting.

The present stage of the project aims to develop standard statistical analyses.

The co-ordinator of the project has drawn the attention of the SC on her worries about the development of the interfaces between the Medits data files and GIS as well as statistical packages. It has been expected that this question would be solved during the symposium just following the present meeting, as this work will be presented as a poster.

F. Corsi has reminded that the Web site is open and accessible to the participants. For the time being, it contains the presentation of the programme and partnerships.

As the main contents of the MDBS software should be available by the next Autumn, the MDBS co-ordinator has been invited to organise a test of its ability for the management of the data in ‘’real time’’ with the data sets which will be produced during the next Medits survey.

5.1     Miscellaneous

The co-ordinator has informed the SC that he has received two requests for an access to the Medits data. The SC has reminded his wish for a as much large as possible opening of the Medits data base to the scientific community, but taking into account the priority for a first elaboration by the scientists who have contributed in the production of the data bank. As it has been begun through the symposium (18-21 March 1998), the scientists involved in the programme are incited to progress in that way as fast as possible to permit to go to the next stage which will be an enlargement of the access to the Medits data for a larger number of scientists. In particular, the urgent need for common elaborations of the data at the full Medits scale, for instance by species groups, has been highlighted. New working propositions will be proposed to the Co-ordination Committee for acceptance. This procedure applies for other working groups (ICES, GFCM, etc.).

One of these requests was from J. Lleonart, as co-ordinator of the Llucet project. By this request, J. Lleonart has asked for an access to all the Medits data concerning the hake along the Spanish, the French and the western Italian coasts. As scientists from France and north-western Italy are partners in both the Medits and the Llucet project, the SC has strongly encouraged the utilisation of the Medits data on hake from these areas by the Llucet project. The corresponding data will be given to the Llucet programme by the concerned regional co-ordinators. The situation in Spain is quite different because no one scientist from IEO is involved in the both programmes. For the Spanish area, the SC has considered that the management of this question should be done through direct contacts between the responsible scientists of IEO and CSIC-ICM.

The other request was from J. Caddy (FAO) who has asked for summarized total biomass by species in the different statistical areas. The SC has underlined that the publication of the basic results obtained from the Medits surveys, as it is done in the annual reports, has to be considered as a high priority. This kind of document would satisfy different requests such as the present one. The co-ordinator has been invited to prepare a proposal on this purpose. The SC has considered that a first spreading of such information should be managed during this year.

6.     Closure

Closing the session, the co-ordinator has thanked Franco Biagi and the CIBM for the quality of accommodation provided to the group during the meeting. He had thanked the participants for their useful contribution in the meeting.

___

 

by Arnauld Souplet

IFREMER - Sète

March 1998

1.     Introduction

By writing the CHECKMED program (A. Souplet, 1995), it was expected that most of errors in the Medits data files could be pointed out. Nevertheless it appeared after the 1996 and 1997 surveys that some errors can remain, for example: file not sorted as described below, several lines (one by sex) for the same species in the same haul in the TB file, cross-checking between TB and TC files not made.

To avoid this kind of errors, a second version as been written whose name is CHKMED2. It does basically the same things as the CHECKMED one with some minor amendments and includes now the checking of the above mentionned errors.

2.     Warning

To correctly operate the programs, it is essential that the TA, TB and TC files are sorted as indicated below. The files can be sorted using any commercial software (Excelâ, Dbaseâ, etc ...)

2.1.1.1     "TA" file

Sorted by:

HAUL NUMBER (position 28-30 in the file)

2.1.1.2     "TB" file

Sorted by:

HAUL NUMBER (position 11-13)

GENUS-SPECIES (17-23)

2.1.1.3     "TC" file

Sorted by:

HAUL NUMBER (position 11-13)

GENUS-SPECIES (16-22)

WEIGHT OF THE FRACTIONS (PFRAC ; 24-29)

SEX (36-36)

LENGTH CLASS (43-46)

3.     Structure of the software

From the previous version (dated from October 1995), the package has been extended to include 12 countries/areas, 200 hauls in each, 800 species in the FM list and 31 reference species. It is divided into 1 batch file, 6 programs and 4 reference files. These are:

 

In addition the package uses the reference file ESPECE.REF used in the INDMED program.

All these files must be on the same directory together with the 3 sorted data files to be checked: TAccyyaa.TXT, TBccttaa.TXT and TCccyyaa.TXT in which cc = country code on 2 characters, yy = year and aa = area code on 2 characters.

As output, the programs create 3 files which have the same name as the data file. The file name extension .TXT is replaced by .VER (for the French "vérification", i.e. "checking"). In these files clear error or warning messages are written. In the case of several records for a given species in a given haul, the program creates a file named TBccttaa.MUL in which the numbers of records for the same species in the same haul are given.

4.     The reference files

4.1.1.1     Vessels reference file

This file contains, for each country/area the 2 characters country and area codes and the 3 characters code for the vessels. It might be changed each year if necessary. Its structure for 1997 is shown below:

ES__COR

FR__LEU

ITM1FRP

ITM2NUS

ITM3SAN

ITM4BIM

ITM5PRI

SL__PRI

HR__PRI

AL__BIM

GRG1PAR

GRG2IRO

 

4.1.1.2     Species reference file

It contains the Rubbin code, the faunistic category (CATFAU) and the length code (CODLON) for all species refered to in the LISTFM file used for the relevant survey. An example of this file is given below:

ABRAVER C0

ACANEXI Bm

ACANPEL Bm

ACATPAL A0

AEQUOPE D0

ALEPROS A0

ALLOMED C0

4.1.1.3     Latitudes and longitudes reference file

It contains the minimal and maximal latitudes an longitudes for each country/area. This file might also be changed if necessary. Its main use is to avoid important typing errors, which, for example, could lead us to have trawled under the Tour Eiffel !. This file is shown below (the negative value for the longitude indicates a west longitude).

ES__3555.16-516.154223.75 339.29

FR__4130.20 304.944328.12 945.35

ITM14052.88 746.954419.861327.98

ITM23830.56 745.574119.241001.00

ITM33522.591112.974102.211610.67

ITM43644.141511.254206.391846.59

ITM54159.391218.794538.981734.61

SL__4533.731331.024535.391336.74

HR__4216.241310.024531.531751.70

AL__4025.131846.914141.201924.63

GRM13810.162237.994051.942609.35

GRM2  35.27  25.583900.102747.99

 

4.1.1.4     Reference file of minimum and maximum length by species

This file contains the minimum and maximum length ever seen in Medits for the 31 species of reference. It might obviously been modified if an individual outside these limits is reported but it can be useful to detect enormous typing errors such as a hake of 3 m instead of 30 cm. The lengths in the file are given in millimeters:

CITHMAC   45  330

EUTRGUR   40  370

HELIDAC   40  310

LEPMBOS   40  385

LOPHBUD   40  870

LOPHPIS   30 1120

MERLMER   10  840

MICMPOU   20  410

MULLBAR   20  370

MULLSUR   60  370

PAGEACA   25  330

PAGEBOG   35  535

PAGEERY   35  440

SPARPAG   30  510

PHYIBLE   30  565

RAJACLA  100  970

SOLEVUL   80  435

SPICFLE   40  240

TRACMED   20  435

TRACTRA   30  460

TRISCAP   20  285

ZEUSFAB   45  620

ARITANT   10   64

ARISFOL   10   40

NEPRNOR   10   41

PAPELON   10   47

ELEDCIR   10  295

ILLECOI   13  250

LOLIVUL   10  440

OCTOVUL   30  250

SEPIOFF   15  185

5.     Running the program

5.1.1.1     Getting started

By typing CHKMED2, the user will call the batch file shown below:

ECHO OFF

IF EXIST CHKMED2.DAT DEL CHKMED2.DAT

IF NOT EXIST CHKMED.DAT GOTO POINT1

DEL CHKMED.DAT

:POINT1

CHKMED2D

CHKMED2A

CHKMED2B

IF EXIST CHKMED2.DAT GOTO FIN

CHKMED2C

CHKMED2F

:FIN

This batch file calls the first 5 programs in the right order. The first one (CHKMED2D) asks the user for the Country code, the Area code and the Year. The file names to be checked are build from these data and stored in the CHKMED.DAT file, together with the number of errors encountered in each file (0 at the beginning of course).

5.1.1.2     Checking of "TA" file (program CHKMED2A)

The program first checks that the hauls are in numerical order, which means that at least this file has been sorted in the duty way (that does not prevent the user to check that the other files have been sorted). If not the following message is display and the program stops.

 

 

***************************************************************************

*                                                                         *

*    THE "TA" FILE IS NOT SORTED BY HAUL NUMBER. YOU HAVE TO SORT IT      *

*    TO DO THAT REFER TO THE "CHECKME2.DOC" DOCUMENT                      *

*                                                                         *

* AT THE SAME TIME CHECK WHETHER OR NOT THE "TB" AND "TC" FILES ARE SORTED*

*                AS DECRIBED IN THE SAME DOCUMENT                         *

*                                                                         *

***************************************************************************

 

If the "TA" file appears to have been correctly sorted, the program checks that each haul, from the first to the last, appears once and only once in the file. Thereafter it checks the file line by line. The following checkings are performed:

 

TYPENR	TA
PAYS	Correctly typed
BATEAU	The same as in the reference file
ENGIN	GOC73
GREEMENT	GC73
PANNEAUX	WHS8
AN	The correct year as given by the user in the first program
MOIS	April to August
JOUR	1 to 30 for April and June ; 1 to 31 for May, July and August
FERCHA	S or C
QUADEB QUAFIN	1 for France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania and Greece ; 1 or 7 for Spain
LATDEB LGNDEB LATFIN LGNFIN	They must be within the limits referred to in the reference file
PRODEB PROFIN	The difference between these two depths is calculated. If it is larger than 20%, a warning message is written in the output file together with the two depths.
HDEB HFIN	HDEB must be less than HFIN
DUREE	It must be equal to those calculated from the reported times
VALID	V or I
PARCOU	R or N
ESPENR	0 to 4
DIST	It must be equal (within a 10% limit) to those calculated from the reported positions[1]
OUVER	1 to 4 m
ECAIL	5 to 25 m
PRGEO	M or E
LONBRA	100 meters down to 200 m depth, 150 meters downward[2]
LONFUN	100 to 2200 m
DIAFUN	14 to 30 mm

 

5.1.1.3     Checking of "TB" file (program CHKMED2B)

The program first reads the valid hauls in the TA file and checks that all these hauls are present in the TB file. It asks the user whether or not he wants to check that the reported species are in the FM list. If not, there will be no error message if a species does not belong to the list^[3]. Thereafter it checks that it is only one line by species and by haul. If not, the following message is displayed and the program stops.

 

***************************************************************************

*                                                                         *

* THERE IS SOME MULTIPLE RECORDS FOR THE SAME SPECIES IN THE SAME HAUL    *

* YOU CAN CHECK THEM IN THE FILE "Tbccttaa.MUL"                           *

*                                                                         *

* WHEN ALL THESE ERRORS WILL BE CORRECTED, YOU MUST RUN THE WHOLE         *

* PROGRAM AGAIN TO DETECT OTHER POSSIBLE ERRORS IN THE "TB" FILE          *

*                                                                         *

* FURTHERMORE YOU SHOULD NOTE THAT IN THE CASE OF THESE ERRORS            *

* THE "TC" FILE IS NOT YET CHECKED                                        *

*                                                                         *

***************************************************************************

If this errors do not occur, the file is checked line by line. The following checkings are performed:

 

TYPENR	TB
PAYS	Correctly typed
BATEAU	The same as in the reference file
AN	The correct year as given by the user in the first program
FERCHA	S or C
PARTIT	S if FERCHA = S ; A, M or P if FERCHA = C
SPECIES	Checks whether or not the reported species is in the FM list
CATFAU	Must be the same as in MEDIESP.DAT file for the given species
PTOT	Must not be 0
NBTOT	Must not be 0 but equal to NBFEM+NBMAL+NBIND

 

In addition, the program checks that there are only allowed characters^[4] in the file. In case of a forbidden character, the program stops and the number of the line containing a forbidden character is displayed on the screen.

5.1.1.4     Checking of "TC" file (program CHKMED2C)

The program first reads the valid hauls in the TA file and checks that all these hauls are present in the TC file. If not, it is not necessarily an error because it could happen that there is no reference species in a given haul. Thereafter it checks the file line by line. The following checkings are performed:

 

TYPENR	TC
PAYS	Correctly typed
BATEAU	The same as in the reference file
AN	The correct year as given by the user in the first program
FERCHA	S or C
PARTIT	S if FERCHA = S ; A, M or P if FERCHA = C
SPECIES	Checks whether or not the reported species is in the FM list
CODLON	Must be the same as in MEDIESP.DAT file for the given species
PECHAN	Must be less than or equal to PFRAC
SEXE	F, M, I or N
MATUR	0-4
CLALON	Must be within the limits defined in MINMAX.CHK file[5]
NBLON	Must be better less than 500[6]

 

Once again the program checks that there are only allowed characters^[7] in the file. In case of a forbidden character, the program stops and the number of the line containing a forbidden character is displayed on the screen.

5.1.1.5     Results of the checking of the individual files (program CHKMED2F)

This program displays whether or not each file is correct and, if not, the number of errors which remains in each and the name(s) of the file(s) in which these errors are listed. Thereafter, it diplays the following important message (the first lines are only an example in the case of three correct file):

 

***************************************************************************

          "TA" FILE IS CORRECT

          "TB" FILE IS CORRECT

          "TC" FILE IS CORRECT

 EVEN IF ALL YOUR FILES ARE INTRINSICALLY CORRECT, DONT FORGET TO RUN

 THE "CHKMED2X" PROGRAM TO MAKE THE CROSS-CHECKING OF THE "TB" AND "TC" FILES

 THANK YOU FOR YOU COOPERATION

ARNAULD

***************************************************************************

5.1.1.6     Cross checking of "TB" and "TC" files (program CHKMED2X)

This program has to be run only after that the 3 data files have been checked and corrected indicidually. It is called by typing CHKMED2X. The checking is performed only on the reference species because to make it for all species in the FM list would need a huge memory, which is not currently available on PC's. For the other species, the attention of the users is drawn on the fact that some mistakes can remain in the data files, due to no control on that species. For each haul and reference species the program checks that:

·    PTOT reported in the TB file is equal to the sum of the different (if any) PFRAC's in that haul and for that species.

·    NBFEM, NBMAL and NBIND reported in the TB file are equal to the sum of all individuals in that haul for that species and that sex, corrected by the ratio PFRAC/PECHAN.

The output file has the following name: TXccyyaa.VER with cc = country code, yy = year, aa = area code. The program advices you how many errors have been detected or if the two files are consistent. In the later case, it give you its congratulations on behalf of myself.

6.     General comments and Conclusions

All these programs can be operated alone, without running the whole software. This is useful to make the user sure that no error remains in the file and it can be done very easily by typing the program's name without modifying the CHKMED.DAT file.

This checking procedure is NOT a correction procedure. The cases of errors are so numerous and so various (as it has been seen !) that it seems rather impossible to write such a procedure. It is everybody's duty to correct, if necessary, his own files.

The author thinks (once more, maybe the last !) that the majority of the possible errors has been taken into account. Nevertheless, should the users note some omission(s) and/or bug(s) in this package, they are invited to contact him as soon as possible.

Thank you again for your co-operation.